Method for uplink transmission and reception in wireless communication system and apparatus therefor

ABSTRACT

Disclosed is a method for uplink transmission and reception in a wireless communication system and an apparatus therefor. Particularly, a method for performing uplink transmission by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system includes: receiving sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configuration information form a base station, in which the SRS resource configuration information includes SRS resource information and association configuration information between a first SRS and a second SRS that is a target of the SRS resource configuration information; and transmitting precoded the second SRS to the base station on an SRS resource indicated by the SRS resource information, and the second SRS may be transmitted based on the precoding applied to the first SRS indicated by the association configuration information.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is the National Stage filing under 35 U.S.C. 371 of International Application No. PCT/KR2018/000367, filed on Jan. 8, 2018, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/443,790, filed on Jan. 8, 2017, No. 62/447,407, filed on Jan. 17, 2017, No. 62/457,985, filed on Feb. 12, 2017, No. 62/458,593, filed on Feb. 14, 2017, No. 62/481,672, filed on Apr. 4, 2017, No. 62/592,339, filed on Nov. 29, 2017, the contents of which are all hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, and more particularly, to an uplink multi input multi output (MIMO) transmission method and an apparatus for supporting the same.

BACKGROUND ART

Mobile communication systems have been developed to provide voice services, while guaranteeing user activity. Service coverage of mobile communication systems, however, has extended even to data services, as well as voice services, and currently, an explosive increase in traffic has resulted in shortage of resource and user demand for a high speed services, requiring advanced mobile communication systems.

The requirements of the next-generation mobile communication system may include supporting huge data traffic, a remarkable increase in the transfer rate of each user, the accommodation of a significantly increased number of connection devices, very low end-to-end latency, and high energy efficiency. To this end, various techniques, such as small cell enhancement, dual connectivity, massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), in-band full duplex, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), supporting super-wide band, and device networking, have been researched.

DISCLOSURE Technical Problem

An embodiment of the present invention provides a method for uplink multi input multi output (MIMO) transmission.

Further, an embodiment of the present invention proposes a method for transmitting an uplink reference signal which becomes a base for uplink multi input multi output (MIMO) transmission and a method for controlling the same.

In addition, an embodiment of the present invention proposes a method for configuring downlink control information (DCI) for uplink MIMO transmission.

Technical objects to be achieved by the present invention are not limited to the aforementioned technical objects, and other technical objects not described above may be evidently understood by a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains from the following description.

Technical Solution

In an aspect of the present invention, a method for performing uplink transmission by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system includes: receiving sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configuration information form a base station, in which the SRS resource configuration information includes SRS resource information and association configuration information between a first SRS and a second SRS that is a target of the SRS resource configuration information; and transmitting precoded the second SRS to the base station on an SRS resource indicated by the SRS resource information, and the second SRS may be transmitted based on the precoding applied to the first SRS indicated by the association configuration information.

In another aspect of the present invention, a user equipment (UE) performing uplink transmission in a wireless communication system, includes: a radio frequency (RF) unit for transmitting and receiving a radio signal; and a processor for controlling the RF unit, and the processor may be configured to receive sounding reference signal (SRS) resource configuration information form a base station, the SRS resource configuration information in which SRS resource information and association configuration information between a first SRS and a second SRS that is a target of the SRS resource configuration information, and transmit precoded the second SRS to the base station on an SRS resource indicated by the SR resource information, and the second SRS may be transmitted based on the precoding applied to the first SRS indicated by the association configuration information.

Preferably, as the association configuration information, resource information of the first SRS may be indicated or antenna port information on a resource of the first SRS may be indicated.

Preferably, for which operation the SRS resource is used may be configured by the base station.

Preferably, the operation may include an uplink data scheduling operation and a beam management operation.

Preferably, a precoding may be applied to a SRS resource for the uplink data scheduling operation so as to form beams of the same direction in all SRS antenna ports configured in a single SRS resource.

Preferably, a precoding may be applied to a SRS resource for the beam management operation so as to form beams of different directions for each SRS antenna port configured in a single SRS resource.

Preferably, the second SRS may be periodically transmitted or aperiodically transmitted by triggering by downlink control information (DCI).

Preferably, the first SRS may be an SRS latest transmitted before transmitting the second SRS.

Preferably, the downlink control information (DCI) for uplink scheduling, which includes an SRS resource indication (SRI) may be received from the base station.

Preferably, a bit width of an SRI field carrying the SRI may be determined based on a number of SRS resources in an SRS resource set configured to the UE and a maximum number of layers supported for uplink transmission.

Preferably, the bit width of the SRI field may be determined according to an equation below. ceil(log 2(S_tot))  [Equation]

Where ceil{x} represents a function that outputs the smallest integer not smaller than x,

${S_{tot} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{L_{\max}}\;\begin{pmatrix} N \\ k \end{pmatrix}}},$ N represents a number of SRS resources in the SRS resource set configured to the UE, and L_max represents a maximum number of layers supported for uplink transmission.

Preferably, the SRS resource set for determining the bit width of the SRI field may be implicitly determined or configured by the base station.

Preferably, uplink may be transmitted on an SRS antenna port transmitted in a SRS resource selected by the SRI.

Preferably, when the uplink transmission is performed based on a non-codebook, the bit width of the SRI field carrying the SRI may be determined as the number of SRS resources in the SRS resource set configured to the UE and the maximum number of layers supported for the uplink transmission.

Advantageous Effects

According to the embodiment of the present invention, frequency selective optimized precoding may be supported even in the uplink.

Further, according to the embodiment of the present invention, uplink transmission throughput may be enhanced by applying optimized precoding for each uplink subband (resource block group).

Further, according to the embodiment of the present invention, overhead of downlink control information related with the uplink for applying uplink subband (resource block group) precoding may be minimized.

Effects which may be obtained by the present invention are not limited to the aforementioned effects, and other technical effects not described above may be evidently understood by a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains from the following description.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are included herein as a part of the description for help understanding the present invention, provide embodiments of the present invention, and describe the technical features of the present invention with the description below.

FIG. 1 illustrates the structure of a radio frame in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a resource grid for a downlink slot in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 3 illustrates a structure of downlink subframe in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 4 illustrates a structure of uplink subframe in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 5 shows the configuration of a known MIMO communication system.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a channel from a plurality of transmission antennas to a single reception antenna.

FIG. 7 illustrates reference signal patterns mapped to downlink resource block pairs in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating resources to which reference signals are mapped in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 9 illustrates an uplink subframe including a sounding reference signal symbol in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a self-contained subframe structure in the wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 11 illustrates a transceiver unit model in the wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating a service area for each transceiver unit in the wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating a method for transmitting and receiving an uplink according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating a method for transmitting and receiving an uplink according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 15 illustrates a block diagram of a wireless communication apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

MODE FOR INVENTION

Some embodiments of the present invention are described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. A detailed description to be disclosed along with the accompanying drawings are intended to describe some embodiments of the present invention and are not intended to describe a sole embodiment of the present invention. The following detailed description includes more details in order to provide full understanding of the present invention. However, those skilled in the art will understand that the present invention may be implemented without such more details.

In some cases, in order to avoid that the concept of the present invention becomes vague, known structures and devices are omitted or may be shown in a block diagram form based on the core functions of each structure and device.

In this specification, a base station has the meaning of a terminal node of a network over which the base station directly communicates with a device. In this document, a specific operation that is described to be performed by a base station may be performed by an upper node of the base station according to circumstances. That is, it is evident that in a network including a plurality of network nodes including a base station, various operations performed for communication with a device may be performed by the base station or other network nodes other than the base station. The base station (BS) may be substituted with another term, such as a fixed station, a Node B, an eNB (evolved-NodeB), a Base Transceiver System (BTS), or an access point (AP). Furthermore, the device may be fixed or may have mobility and may be substituted with another term, such as User Equipment (UE), a Mobile Station (MS), a User Terminal (UT), a Mobile Subscriber Station (MSS), a Subscriber Station (SS), an Advanced Mobile Station (AMS), a Wireless Terminal (WT), a Machine-Type Communication (MTC) device, a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) device, or a Device-to-Device (D2D) device.

Hereinafter, downlink (DL) means communication from an eNB to UE, and uplink (UL) means communication from UE to an eNB. In DL, a transmitter may be part of an eNB, and a receiver may be part of UE. In UL, a transmitter may be part of UE, and a receiver may be part of an eNB.

Specific terms used in the following description have been provided to help understanding of the present invention, and the use of such specific terms may be changed in various forms without departing from the technical sprit of the present invention.

The following technologies may be used in a variety of wireless communication systems, such as Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA), and Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA). CDMA may be implemented using a radio technology, such as Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) or CDMA2000. TDMA may be implemented using a radio technology, such as Global System for Mobile communications (GSM)/General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)/Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). OFDMA may be implemented using a radio technology, such as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 (Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), IEEE 802.20, or Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA). UTRA is part of a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) is part of an Evolved UMTS (E-UMTS) using evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA), and it adopts OFDMA in downlink and adopts SC-FDMA in uplink. LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) is the evolution of 3GPP LTE.

Embodiments of the present invention may be supported by the standard documents disclosed in at least one of IEEE 802, 3GPP, and 3GPP2, that is, radio access systems. That is, steps or portions that belong to the embodiments of the present invention and that are not described in order to clearly expose the technical spirit of the present invention may be supported by the documents. Furthermore, all terms disclosed in this document may be described by the standard documents.

In order to more clarify a description, 3GPP LTE/LTE-A or new RAT(RAT in 5G(5 generation) system) is chiefly described, but the technical characteristics of the present invention are not limited thereto.

General System to which the Present Invention May be Applied

FIG. 1 shows the structure of a radio frame in a wireless communication system to which an embodiment of the present invention may be applied.

3GPP LTE/LTE-A support a radio frame structure type 1 which may be applicable to Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and a radio frame structure which may be applicable to Time Division Duplex (TDD).

The size of a radio frame in the time domain is represented as a multiple of a time unit of T_s=1/(15000*2048). A UL and DL transmission includes the radio frame having a duration of T_f=307200*T_s=10 ms.

FIG. 1(a) exemplifies a radio frame structure type 1. The type 1 radio frame may be applied to both of full duplex FDD and half duplex FDD.

A radio frame includes 10 subframes. A radio frame includes 20 slots of T_slot=15360*T_s=0.5 ms length, and 0 to 19 indexes are given to each of the slots. One subframe includes consecutive two slots in the time domain, and subframe i includes slot 2 i and slot 2 i+1. The time required for transmitting a subframe is referred to as a transmission time interval (TTI). For example, the length of the subframe i may be 1 ms and the length of a slot may be 0.5 ms.

A UL transmission and a DL transmission I the FDD are distinguished in the frequency domain. Whereas there is no restriction in the full duplex FDD, a UE may not transmit and receive simultaneously in the half duplex FDD operation.

One slot includes a plurality of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbols in the time domain and includes a plurality of Resource Blocks (RBs) in a frequency domain. In 3GPP LTE, OFDM symbols are used to represent one symbol period because OFDMA is used in downlink. An OFDM symbol may be called one SC-FDMA symbol or symbol period. An RB is a resource allocation unit and includes a plurality of contiguous subcarriers in one slot.

FIG. 1(b) shows frame structure type 2.

A type 2 radio frame includes two half frame of 153600*T_s=5 ms length each. Each half frame includes 5 subframes of 30720*T_s=1 ms length.

In the frame structure type 2 of a TDD system, an uplink-downlink configuration is a rule indicating whether uplink and downlink are allocated (or reserved) to all subframes.

Table 1 shows the uplink-downlink configuration.

TABLE 1 Downlink-to- Uplink- Uplink Switch- Downlink point Subframe number configuration periodicity 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 5 ms D S U U U D S U U U 1 5 ms D S U U D D S U U D 2 5 ms D S U D D D S U D D 3 10 ms D S U U U D D D D D 4 10 ms D S U U D D D D D D 5 10 ms D S U D D D D D D D 6 5 ms D S U U U D S U U D

Referring to Table 1, in each subframe of the radio frame, ‘ID’ represents a subframe for a DL transmission, ‘U’ represents a subframe for UL transmission, and ‘S’ represents a special subframe including three types of fields including a Downlink Pilot Time Slot (DwPTS), a Guard Period (GP), and a Uplink Pilot Time Slot (UpPTS).

A DwPTS is used for an initial cell search, synchronization or channel estimation in a UE. A UpPTS is used for channel estimation in an eNB and for synchronizing a UL transmission synchronization of a UE. A GP is duration for removing interference occurred in a UL owing to multi-path delay of a DL signal between a UL and a DL.

Each subframe i includes slot 2 i and slot 2 i+1 of T_slot=15360*T_s=0.5 ms.

The UL-DL configuration may be classified into 7 types, and the position and/or the number of a DL subframe, a special subframe and a UL subframe are different for each configuration.

A point of time at which a change is performed from downlink to uplink or a point of time at which a change is performed from uplink to downlink is called a switching point. The periodicity of the switching point means a cycle in which an uplink subframe and a downlink subframe are changed is identically repeated. Both 5 ms and 10 ms are supported in the periodicity of a switching point. If the periodicity of a switching point has a cycle of a 5 ms downlink-uplink switching point, the special subframe S is present in each half frame. If the periodicity of a switching point has a cycle of a 5 ms downlink-uplink switching point, the special subframe S is present in the first half frame only.

In all the configurations, 0 and 5 subframes and a DwPTS are used for only downlink transmission. An UpPTS and a subframe subsequent to a subframe are always used for uplink transmission.

Such uplink-downlink configurations may be known to both an eNB and UE as system information. An eNB may notify UE of a change of the uplink-downlink allocation state of a radio frame by transmitting only the index of uplink-downlink configuration information to the UE whenever the uplink-downlink configuration information is changed. Furthermore, configuration information is kind of downlink control information and may be transmitted through a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) like other scheduling information. Configuration information may be transmitted to all UEs within a cell through a broadcast channel as broadcasting information.

Table 2 represents configuration (length of DwPTS/GP/UpPTS) of a special subframe.

TABLE 2 Normal cyclic prefix in downlink Extended cyclic prefix in downlink UpPTS UpPTS Normal Extended Normal Extended Special cyclic cyclic cyclic cyclic subframe prefix prefix prefix prefix configuration DwPTS in uplink in uplink DwPTS in uplink in uplink 0  6592 · T_(s) 2192 · T_(s) 2560 · T_(s)  7680 · T_(s) 2192 · T_(s) 2560 · T_(s) 1 19760 · T_(s) 20480 · T_(s) 2 21952 · T_(s) 23040 · T_(s) 3 24144 · T_(s) 25600 · T_(s) 4 26336 · T_(s)  7680 · T_(s) 4384 · T_(s) 5120 · T_(s) 5  6592 · T_(s) 4384 · T_(s) 5120 · T_(s) 20480 · T_(s) 6 19760 · T_(s) 23040 · T_(s) 7 21952 · T_(s) — — — 8 24144 · T_(s) — — —

The structure of a radio subframe according to the example of FIG. 1 is just an example, and the number of subcarriers included in a radio frame, the number of slots included in a subframe and the number of OFDM symbols included in a slot may be changed in various manners.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a resource grid for one downlink slot in a wireless communication system to which an embodiment of the present invention may be applied.

Referring to FIG. 2, one downlink slot includes a plurality of OFDM symbols in a time domain. It is described herein that one downlink slot includes 7 OFDMA symbols and one resource block includes 12 subcarriers for exemplary purposes only, and the present invention is not limited thereto.

Each element on the resource grid is referred to as a resource element, and one resource block (RB) includes 12×7 resource elements. The number of RBs NADL included in a downlink slot depends on a downlink transmission bandwidth.

The structure of an uplink slot may be the same as that of a downlink slot.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of a downlink subframe in a wireless communication system to which an embodiment of the present invention may be applied.

Referring to FIG. 3, a maximum of three OFDM symbols located in a front portion of a first slot of a subframe correspond to a control region in which control channels are allocated, and the remaining OFDM symbols correspond to a data region in which a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) is allocated. Downlink control channels used in 3GPP LTE include, for example, a physical control format indicator channel (PCFICH), a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and a physical hybrid-ARQ indicator channel (PHICH).

A PCFICH is transmitted in the first OFDM symbol of a subframe and carries information about the number of OFDM symbols (i.e., the size of a control region) which is used to transmit control channels within the subframe. A PHICH is a response channel for uplink and carries an acknowledgement (ACK)/not-acknowledgement (NACK) signal for a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ). Control information transmitted in a PDCCH is called Downlink Control Information (DCI). DCI includes uplink resource allocation information, downlink resource allocation information, or an uplink transmission (Tx) power control command for a specific UE group.

A PDCCH may carry information about the resource allocation and transport format of a downlink shared channel (DL-SCH) (this is also called an “downlink grant”), resource allocation information about an uplink shared channel (UL-SCH) (this is also called a “uplink grant”), paging information on a PCH, system information on a DL-SCH, the resource allocation of a higher layer control message, such as a random access response transmitted on a PDSCH, a set of transmission power control commands for individual UE within specific UE group, and the activation of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), etc. A plurality of PDCCHs may be transmitted within the control region, and UE may monitor a plurality of PDCCHs. A PDCCH is transmitted on a single Control Channel Element (CCE) or an aggregation of some contiguous CCEs. A CCE is a logical allocation unit that is used to provide a PDCCH with a coding rate according to the state of a radio channel. A CCE corresponds to a plurality of resource element groups. The format of a PDCCH and the number of available bits of a PDCCH are determined by an association relationship between the number of CCEs and a coding rate provided by CCEs.

An eNB determines the format of a PDCCH based on DCI to be transmitted to UE and attaches a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) to control information. A unique identifier (a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI)) is masked to the CRC depending on the owner or use of a PDCCH. If the PDCCH is a PDCCH for specific UE, an identifier unique to the UE, for example, a Cell-RNTI (C-RNTI) may be masked to the CRC. If the PDCCH is a PDCCH for a paging message, a paging indication identifier, for example, a Paging-RNTI (P-RNTI) may be masked to the CRC. If the PDCCH is a PDCCH for system information, more specifically, a System Information Block (SIB), a system information identifier, for example, a System Information-RNTI (SI-RNTI) may be masked to the CRC. A Random Access-RNTI (RA-RNTI) may be masked to the CRC in order to indicate a random access response which is a response to the transmission of a random access preamble by UE.

FIG. 4 shows the structure of an uplink subframe in a wireless communication system to which an embodiment of the present invention may be applied.

Referring to FIG. 4, the uplink subframe may be divided into a control region and a data region in a frequency domain. A physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) carrying uplink control information is allocated to the control region. A physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) carrying user data is allocated to the data region. In order to maintain single carrier characteristic, one UE does not send a PUCCH and a PUSCH at the same time.

A Resource Block (RB) pair is allocated to a PUCCH for one UE within a subframe. RBs belonging to an RB pair occupy different subcarriers in each of 2 slots. This is called that an RB pair allocated to a PUCCH is frequency-hopped in a slot boundary.

Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO)

A MIMO technology does not use single transmission antenna and single reception antenna that have been commonly used so far, but uses a multi-transmission (Tx) antenna and a multi-reception (Rx) antenna. In other words, the MIMO technology is a technology for increasing a capacity or enhancing performance using multi-input/output antennas in the transmission end or reception end of a wireless communication system. Hereinafter, MIMO is called a “multi-input/output antenna.”.

More specifically, the multi-input/output antenna technology does not depend on a single antenna path in order to receive a single total message and completes total data by collecting a plurality of data pieces received through several antennas. As a result, the multi-input/output antenna technology can increase a data transfer rate within a specific system range and can also increase a system range through a specific data transfer rate.

It is expected that an efficient multi-input/output antenna technology will be used because next-generation mobile communication requires a data transfer rate much higher than that of existing mobile communication. In such a situation, the MIMO communication technology is a next-generation mobile communication technology which may be widely used in mobile communication UE and a relay node and has been in the spotlight as a technology which may overcome a limit to the transfer rate of another mobile communication attributable to the expansion of data communication.

Meanwhile, the multi-input/output antenna (MIMO) technology of various transmission efficiency improvement technologies that are being developed has been most in the spotlight as a method capable of significantly improving a communication capacity and transmission/reception performance even without the allocation of additional frequencies or a power increase.

FIG. 5 shows the configuration of a known MIMO communication system.

Referring to FIG. 5, if the number of transmission (Tx) antennas is increased to N_T and the number of reception (Rx) antennas is increased to N_R at the same time, a theoretical channel transmission capacity is increased in proportion to the number of antennas, unlike in the case where a plurality of antennas is used only in a transmitter or a receiver. Accordingly, a transfer rate can be improved, and frequency efficiency can be significantly improved. In this case, a transfer rate according to an increase of a channel transmission capacity may be theoretically increased by a value obtained by multiplying the following rate increment R_i by a maximum transfer rate R_o if one antenna is used. R _(i)=min(N _(T) ,N _(R))  [Equation 1]

That is, in an MIMO communication system using 4 transmission antennas and 4 reception antennas, for example, a quadruple transfer rate can be obtained theoretically compared to a single antenna system.

Such a multi-input/output antenna technology may be divided into a spatial diversity method for increasing transmission reliability using symbols passing through various channel paths and a spatial multiplexing method for improving a transfer rate by sending a plurality of data symbols at the same time using a plurality of transmission antennas. Furthermore, active research is being recently carried out on a method for properly obtaining the advantages of the two methods by combining the two methods.

Each of the methods is described in more detail below.

First, the spatial diversity method includes a space-time block code-series method and a space-time Trelis code-series method using a diversity gain and a coding gain at the same time. In general, the Trelis code-series method is better in terms of bit error rate improvement performance and the degree of a code generation freedom, whereas the space-time block code-series method has low operational complexity. Such a spatial diversity gain may correspond to an amount corresponding to the product (N_T×N_R) of the number of transmission antennas (N_T) and the number of reception antennas (N_R).

Second, the spatial multiplexing scheme is a method for sending different data streams in transmission antennas. In this case, in a receiver, mutual interference is generated between data transmitted by a transmitter at the same time. The receiver removes the interference using a proper signal processing scheme and receives the data. A noise removal method used in this case may include a Maximum Likelihood Detection (MLD) receiver, a Zero-Forcing (ZF) receiver, a Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) receiver, Diagonal-Bell Laboratories Layered Space-Time (D-BLAST), and Vertical-Bell Laboratories Layered Space-Time (V-BLAST). In particular, if a transmission end can be aware of channel information, a Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) method may be used.

Third, there is a method using a combination of a spatial diversity and spatial multiplexing. If only a spatial diversity gain is to be obtained, a performance improvement gain according to an increase of a diversity disparity is gradually saturated. If only a spatial multiplexing gain is used, transmission reliability in a radio channel is deteriorated. Methods for solving the problems and obtaining the two gains have been researched and may include a double space-time transmit diversity (double-STTD) method and a space-time bit interleaved coded modulation (STBICM).

In order to describe a communication method in a multi-input/output antenna system, such as that described above, in more detail, the communication method may be represented as follows through mathematical modeling.

First, as shown in FIG. 5, it is assumed that N_T transmission antennas and NR reception antennas are present.

First, a transmission signal is described below. If the N_T transmission antennas are present as described above, a maximum number of pieces of information which can be transmitted are N_T, which may be represented using the following vector. S=└s ₁ ,s ₂ ,Λ,s _(N) _(T) ┘^(T)  [Equation 2]

Meanwhile, transmission power may be different in each of pieces of transmission information s_1, s_2, . . . , s_NT. In this case, if pieces of transmission power are P_1, P_2, . . . , P_NT, transmission information having controlled transmission power may be represented using the following vector. ŝ=[ŝ ₁ ,ŝ ₂ ,Λ,ŝ _(N) _(T) ]^(T)=[P ₁ s ₁ ,P ₂ s ₂ ,Λ,P _(N) _(T) s _(N) _(T) ]^(T)  [Equation 3]

Furthermore, transmission information having controlled transmission power in the Equation 3 may be represented as follows using the diagonal matrix P of transmission power.

$\begin{matrix} {\hat{s} = {{\begin{bmatrix} P_{1} & \; & \; & 0 \\ \; & P_{2} & \; & \; \\ \; & \; & O & \; \\ 0 & \; & \; & P_{N_{T}} \end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix} s_{1} \\ s_{2} \\ M \\ s_{N_{T}} \end{bmatrix}} = {Ps}}} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 4} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$

Meanwhile, the information vector having controlled transmission power in the Equation 4 is multiplied by a weight matrix W, thus forming N_T transmission signals x_1, x_2, . . . , x_NT that are actually transmitted. In this case, the weight matrix functions to properly distribute the transmission information to antennas according to a transport channel condition. The following may be represented using the transmission signals x_1, x_2, . . . , x_NT.

$\begin{matrix} {x = {\begin{bmatrix} x_{1} \\ x_{2} \\ M \\ x_{i} \\ M \\ x_{N_{T}} \end{bmatrix} = {{\begin{bmatrix} w_{11} & w_{12} & \Lambda & w_{1N_{T}} \\ w_{21} & w_{22} & \Lambda & w_{2N_{T}} \\ M & \; & O & \; \\ w_{i\; 1} & w_{i\; 2} & \Lambda & w_{{iN}_{T}} \\ M & \; & O & \; \\ w_{N_{T}1} & w_{N_{T}2} & \Lambda & w_{N_{T}N_{T}} \end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix} {\hat{s}}_{1} \\ {\hat{s}}_{2} \\ M \\ {\hat{s}}_{j} \\ M \\ {\hat{s}}_{N_{T}} \end{bmatrix}} = {{W\hat{s}} = {WPs}}}}} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 5} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$

In this case, w_ij denotes weight between an i-th transmission antenna and a j-th transmission information, and W is an expression of a matrix of the weight. Such a matrix W is called a weight matrix or precoding matrix.

Meanwhile, the transmission signal x, such as that described above, may be considered to be used in a case where a spatial diversity is used and a case where spatial multiplexing is used.

If spatial multiplexing is used, all the elements of the information vector s have different values because different signals are multiplexed and transmitted. In contrast, if the spatial diversity is used, all the elements of the information vector s have the same value because the same signals are transmitted through several channel paths.

A method of mixing spatial multiplexing and the spatial diversity may be taken into consideration. In other words, the same signals may be transmitted using the spatial diversity through 3 transmission antennas, for example, and the remaining different signals may be spatially multiplexed and transmitted.

If N_R reception antennas are present, the reception signals y_1, y_2, . . . , y_NR of the respective antennas are represented as follows using a vector y. y=[y ₁,y₂ ,Λ,y _(N) _(R) ]^(T)  [Equation 6]

Meanwhile, if channels in a multi-input/output antenna communication system are modeled, the channels may be classified according to transmission/reception antenna indices. A channel passing through a reception antenna i from a transmission antenna j is represented as h_ij. In this case, it is to be noted that in order of the index of h_ij, the index of a reception antenna comes first and the index of a transmission antenna then comes.

Several channels may be grouped and expressed in a vector and matrix form. For example, a vector expression is described below.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a channel from a plurality of transmission antennas to a single reception antenna.

As shown in FIG. 6, a channel from a total of N_T transmission antennas to a reception antenna i may be represented as follows. h _(i) ^(T) =└h _(i1) ,h _(i2) ,Λ,h _(iN) _(T) ┘  [Equation 7]

Furthermore, if all channels from the N_T transmission antenna to NR reception antennas are represented through a matrix expression, such as Equation 7, they may be represented as follows.

$\begin{matrix} {H = {\begin{bmatrix} h_{1}^{T} \\ h_{2}^{T} \\ M \\ h_{i}^{T} \\ M \\ h_{N_{R}}^{T} \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} h_{11} & h_{12} & \Lambda & h_{1N_{T}} \\ h_{21} & h_{22} & \Lambda & h_{2N_{T}} \\ M & \; & O & \; \\ h_{i\; 1} & h_{i\; 2} & \Lambda & h_{{iN}_{T}} \\ M & \; & O & \; \\ h_{N_{R}1} & h_{N_{R}2} & \Lambda & h_{N_{R}N_{T}} \end{bmatrix}}} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 8} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$

Meanwhile, Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) is added to an actual channel after the actual channel experiences the channel matrix H. Accordingly, AWGN n_1, n_2, . . . , n_NR added to the N_R reception antennas, respectively, are represented using a vector as follows. n=[n ₁ ,n ₂ ,Λ,n _(N) _(R) ]^(T)  [Equation 9]

A transmission signal, a reception signal, a channel, and AWGN in a multi-input/output antenna communication system may be represented to have the following relationship through the modeling of the transmission signal, reception signal, channel, and AWGN, such as those described above.

$\begin{matrix} {y = {\begin{bmatrix} y_{1} \\ y_{2} \\ M \\ y_{i} \\ M \\ y_{N_{R}} \end{bmatrix} = {{{\begin{bmatrix} h_{11} & h_{12} & \Lambda & h_{1N_{T}} \\ h_{21} & h_{22} & \Lambda & h_{2N_{T}} \\ M & \; & O & \; \\ h_{i\; 1} & h_{i\; 2} & \Lambda & h_{{iN}_{T}} \\ M & \; & O & \; \\ h_{N_{R}1} & h_{N_{R}2} & \Lambda & h_{N_{R}N_{T}} \end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix} x_{1} \\ x_{2} \\ M \\ x_{j} \\ M \\ x_{N_{T}} \end{bmatrix}} + \begin{bmatrix} n_{1} \\ n_{2} \\ M \\ n_{i} \\ M \\ n_{N_{R}} \end{bmatrix}} = {{Hx} + n}}}} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 10} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$

Meanwhile, the number of rows and columns of the channel matrix H indicative of the state of channels is determined by the number of transmission/reception antennas. In the channel matrix H, as described above, the number of rows becomes equal to the number of reception antennas N_R, and the number of columns becomes equal to the number of transmission antennas N_T. That is, the channel matrix H becomes an N_R×N_T matrix.

In general, the rank of a matrix is defined as a minimum number of the number of independent rows or columns. Accordingly, the rank of the matrix is not greater than the number of rows or columns. As for figural style, for example, the rank H of the channel matrix H is limited as follows. rank(H)≤min(N _(T) ,N _(R))  [Equation 11]

Furthermore, if a matrix is subjected to Eigen value decomposition, a rank may be defined as the number of Eigen values that belong to Eigen values and that are not 0. Likewise, if a rank is subjected to Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), it may be defined as the number of singular values other than 0. Accordingly, the physical meaning of a rank in a channel matrix may be said to be a maximum number on which different information may be transmitted in a given channel.

In this specification, a “rank” for MIMO transmission indicates the number of paths through which signals may be independently transmitted at a specific point of time and a specific frequency resource. The “number of layers” indicates the number of signal streams transmitted through each path. In general, a rank has the same meaning as the number of layers unless otherwise described because a transmission end sends the number of layers corresponding to the number of ranks used in signal transmission.

Reference Signal (RS)

In a wireless communication system, a signal may be distorted during transmission because data is transmitted through a radio channel. In order for a reception end to accurately receive a distorted signal, the distortion of a received signal needs to be corrected using channel information. In order to detect channel information, a method of detecting channel information using the degree of the distortion of a signal transmission method and a signal known to both the transmission side and the reception side when they are transmitted through a channel is chiefly used. The aforementioned signal is called a pilot signal or reference signal (RS).

Furthermore recently, when most of mobile communication systems transmit a packet, they use a method capable of improving transmission/reception data efficiency by adopting multiple transmission antennas and multiple reception antennas instead of using one transmission antenna and one reception antenna used so far. When data is transmitted and received using multiple input/output antennas, a channel state between the transmission antenna and the reception antenna must be detected in order to accurately receive the signal. Accordingly, each transmission antenna must have an individual reference signal.

In a mobile communication system, an RS may be basically divided into two types depending on its object. There are an RS having an object of obtaining channel state information and an RS used for data demodulation. The former has an object of obtaining, by a UE, to obtain channel state information in the downlink. Accordingly, a corresponding RS must be transmitted in a wideband, and a UE must be capable of receiving and measuring the RS although the UE does not receive downlink data in a specific subframe. Furthermore, the former is also used for radio resources management (RRM) measurement, such as handover. The latter is an RS transmitted along with corresponding resources when an eNB transmits the downlink. A UE may perform channel estimation by receiving a corresponding RS and thus may demodulate data. The corresponding RS must be transmitted in a region in which data is transmitted.

A downlink RS includes one common RS (CRS) for the acquisition of information about a channel state shared by all of UEs within a cell and measurement, such as handover, and a dedicated RS (DRS) used for data demodulation for only a specific UE. Information for demodulation and channel measurement can be provided using such RSs. That is, the DRS is used for only data demodulation, and the CRS is used for the two objects of channel information acquisition and data demodulation.

The reception side (i.e., UE) measures a channel state based on a CRS and feeds an indicator related to channel quality, such as a channel quality indicator (CQI), a precoding matrix index (PMI) and/or a rank indicator (RI), back to the transmission side (i.e., an eNB). The CRS is also called a cell-specific RS. In contrast, a reference signal related to the feedback of channel state information (CSI) may be defined as a CSI-RS.

The DRS may be transmitted through resource elements if data on a PDSCH needs to be demodulated. A UE may receive information about whether a DRS is present through a higher layer, and the DRS is valid only if a corresponding PDSCH has been mapped. The DRS may also be called a UE-specific RS or demodulation RS (DMRS).

FIG. 7 illustrates reference signal patterns mapped to downlink resource block pairs in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

Referring to FIG. 7, a downlink resource block pair, that is, a unit in which a reference signal is mapped, may be represented in the form of one subframe in a time domain X 12 subcarriers in a frequency domain. That is, in a time axis (an x axis), one resource block pair has a length of 14 OFDM symbols in the case of a normal cyclic prefix (CP) (FIG. 7a ) and has a length of 12 OFDM symbols in the case of an extended cyclic prefix (CP) (FIG. 7b ). In the resource block lattice, resource elements (REs) indicated by “0”, “1”, “2”, and “3” mean the locations of the CRSs of antenna port indices “0”, “1”, “2”, and “3”, respectively, and REs indicated by “D” mean the location of a DRS.

A CRS is described in more detail below. The CRS is a reference signal which is used to estimate the channel of a physical antenna and may be received by all UEs located within a cell in common. The CRS is distributed to a full frequency bandwidth. That is, the CRS is cell-specific signal and is transmitted every subframe in a wideband. Furthermore, the CRS may be used for channel quality information (CSI) and data demodulation.

A CRS is defined in various formats depending on an antenna array on the transmitting side (eNB). In the 3GPP LTE system (e.g., Release-8), an RS for a maximum four antenna ports is transmitted depending on the number of transmission antennas of an eNB. The side from which a downlink signal is transmitted has three types of antenna arrays, such as a single transmission antenna, two transmission antennas and four transmission antennas. For example, if the number of transmission antennas of an eNB is two, CRSs for a No. 0 antenna port and a No. 1 antenna port are transmitted. If the number of transmission antennas of an eNB is four, CRSs for No. 0˜No. 3 antenna ports are transmitted. If the number of transmission antennas of an eNB is four, a CRS pattern in one RB is shown in FIG. 7.

If an eNB uses a single transmission antenna, reference signals for a single antenna port are arrayed.

If an eNB uses two transmission antennas, reference signals for two transmission antenna ports are arrayed using a time division multiplexing (TDM) scheme and/or a frequency division multiplexing (FDM) scheme. That is, different time resources and/or different frequency resources are allocated in order to distinguish between reference signals for two antenna ports.

Furthermore, if an eNB uses four transmission antennas, reference signals for four transmission antenna ports are arrayed using the TDM and/or FDM schemes. Channel information measured by the reception side (i.e., UE) of a downlink signal may be used to demodulate data transmitted using a transmission scheme, such as single transmission antenna transmission, transmission diversity, closed-loop spatial multiplexing, open-loop spatial multiplexing or a multi-user-multi-input/output (MIMO) antenna.

If a multi-input multi-output antenna is supported, when a RS is transmitted by a specific antenna port, the RS is transmitted in the locations of resource elements specified depending on a pattern of the RS and is not transmitted in the locations of resource elements specified for other antenna ports. That is, RSs between different antennas do not overlap.

A DRS is described in more detail below. The DRS is used to demodulate data. In multi-input multi-output antenna transmission, precoding weight used for a specific UE is combined with a transmission channel transmitted by each transmission antenna when the UE receives an RS, and is used to estimate a corresponding channel without any change.

A 3GPP LTE system (e.g., Release-8) supports a maximum of four transmission antennas, and a DRS for rank 1 beamforming is defined. The DRS for rank 1 beamforming also indicates an RS for an antenna port index 5.

In an LTE-A system, that is, an advanced and developed form of the LTE system, the design is necessary to support a maximum of eight transmission antennas in the downlink of an eNB. Accordingly, RSs for the maximum of eight transmission antennas must be also supported. In the LTE system, only downlink RSs for a maximum of four antenna ports has been defined. Accordingly, if an eNB has four to a maximum of eight downlink transmission antennas in the LTE-A system, RSs for these antenna ports must be additionally defined and designed. Regarding the RSs for the maximum of eight transmission antenna ports, the aforementioned RS for channel measurement and the aforementioned RS for data demodulation must be designed.

One of important factors that must be considered in designing an LTE-A system is backward compatibility, that is, that an LTE UE must well operate even in the LTE-A system, which must be supported by the system. From an RS transmission viewpoint, in the time-frequency domain in which a CRS defined in LTE is transmitted in a full band every subframe, RSs for a maximum of eight transmission antenna ports must be additionally defined. In the LTE-A system, if an RS pattern for a maximum of eight transmission antennas is added in a full band every subframe using the same method as the CRS of the existing LTE, RS overhead is excessively increased.

Accordingly, the RS newly designed in the LTE-A system is basically divided into two types, which include an RS having a channel measurement object for the selection of MCS or a PMI (channel state information-RS or channel state indication-RS (CSI-RS)) and an RS for the demodulation of data transmitted through eight transmission antennas (data demodulation-RS (DM-RS)).

The CSI-RS for the channel measurement object is characterized in that it is designed for an object focused on channel measurement unlike the existing CRS used for objects for measurement, such as channel measurement and handover, and for data demodulation. Furthermore, the CSI-RS may also be used for an object for measurement, such as handover. The CSI-RS does not need to be transmitted every subframe unlike the CRS because it is transmitted for an object of obtaining information about a channel state. In order to reduce overhead of a CSI-RS, the CSI-RS is intermittently transmitted on the time axis.

For data demodulation, a DM-RS is dedicatedly transmitted to a UE scheduled in a corresponding time-frequency domain. That is, a DM-RS for a specific UE is transmitted only in a region in which the corresponding UE has been scheduled, that is, in the time-frequency domain in which data is received.

In the LTE-A system, a maximum of eight transmission antennas are supported in the downlink of an eNB. In the LTE-A system, if RSs for a maximum of eight transmission antennas are transmitted in a full band every subframe using the same method as the CRS in the existing LTE, RS overhead is excessively increased. Accordingly, in the LTE-A system, an RS has been separated into the CSI-RS of the CSI measurement object for the selection of MCS or a PMI and the DM-RS for data demodulation, and thus the two RSs have been added. The CSI-RS may also be used for an object, such as RRM measurement, but has been designed for a main object for the acquisition of CSI. The CSI-RS does not need to be transmitted every subframe because it is not used for data demodulation. Accordingly, in order to reduce overhead of the CSI-RS, the CSI-RS is intermittently transmitted on the time axis. That is, the CSI-RS has a period corresponding to a multiple of the integer of one subframe and may be periodically transmitted or transmitted in a specific transmission pattern. In this case, the period or pattern in which the CSI-RS is transmitted may be set by an eNB.

For data demodulation, a DM-RS is dedicatedly transmitted to a UE scheduled in a corresponding time-frequency domain. That is, a DM-RS for a specific UE is transmitted only in the region in which scheduling is performed for the corresponding UE, that is, only in the time-frequency domain in which data is received.

In order to measure a CSI-RS, a UE must be aware of information about the transmission subframe index of the CSI-RS for each CSI-RS antenna port of a cell to which the UE belongs, the location of a CSI-RS resource element (RE) time-frequency within a transmission subframe, and a CSI-RS sequence.

In the LTE-A system, an eNB has to transmit a CSI-RS for each of a maximum of eight antenna ports. Resources used for the CSI-RS transmission of different antenna ports must be orthogonal. When one eNB transmits CSI-RSs for different antenna ports, it may orthogonally allocate the resources according to the FDM/TDM scheme by mapping the CSI-RSs for the respective antenna ports to different REs. Alternatively, the CSI-RSs for different antenna ports may be transmitted according to the CDM scheme for mapping the CSI-RSs to pieces of code orthogonal to each other.

When an eNB notifies a UE belonging to the eNB of information on a CSI-RS, first, the eNB must notify the UE of information about a time-frequency in which a CSI-RS for each antenna port is mapped. Specifically, the information includes subframe numbers in which the CSI-RS is transmitted or a period in which the CSI-RS is transmitted, a subframe offset in which the CSI-RS is transmitted, an OFDM symbol number in which the CSI-RS RE of a specific antenna is transmitted, frequency spacing, and the offset or shift value of an RE in the frequency axis.

A CSI-RS is transmitted through one, two, four or eight antenna ports. Antenna ports used in this case are p=15, p=15, 16, p=15, . . . , 18, and p=15, . . . , 22, respectively. A CSI-RS may be defined for only a subcarrier interval Δf=15 kHz.

In a subframe configured for CSI-RS transmission, a CSI-RS sequence is mapped to a complex-valued modulation symbol a_k,|{circumflex over ( )}(p) used as a reference symbol on each antenna port p as in Equation 12.

$\begin{matrix} \begin{matrix} {\mspace{79mu}{a_{k,l}^{(p)} = {w_{l^{''}} \cdot {r_{l,n_{s}}\left( m^{\prime} \right)}}}} \\ {k = {k^{\prime} + {12m} + \left\{ \begin{matrix} {- 0} & {{{{for}\mspace{14mu} p} \in \left\{ {15,16} \right\}},{{normal}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ {- 6} & {{{{for}\mspace{14mu} p} \in \left\{ {17,18} \right\}},{{normal}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ {- 1} & {{{{for}\mspace{14mu} p} \in \left\{ {19,20} \right\}},{{normal}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ {- 7} & {{{{for}\mspace{14mu} p} \in \left\{ {21,22} \right\}},{{normal}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ {- 0} & {{{{for}\mspace{14mu} p} \in \left\{ {15,16} \right\}},{{extended}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ {- 3} & {{{{for}\mspace{14mu} p} \in \left\{ {17,18} \right\}},{{extended}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ {- 6} & {{{{for}\mspace{14mu} p} \in \left\{ {19,20} \right\}},{{extended}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ {- 9} & {{{{for}\mspace{14mu} p} \in \left\{ {21,22} \right\}},{{extended}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \end{matrix} \right.}} \\ {l = {l^{\prime} + \left\{ \begin{matrix} l^{''} & {{{CSI}\mspace{14mu}{reference}\mspace{14mu}{signal}\mspace{14mu}{configurations}\mspace{14mu} 0\text{-}19},{{normal}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ {2l^{''}} & {{{CSI}\mspace{14mu}{reference}\mspace{14mu}{signal}\mspace{14mu}{configurations}\mspace{14mu} 20\text{-}31},{{normal}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}}} \\ l^{''} & {{{CSI}\mspace{14mu}{reference}\mspace{14mu}{signal}\mspace{14mu}{configurations}\mspace{14mu} 0\text{-}27},} \\ \; & {{extended}\mspace{14mu}{cyclic}\mspace{14mu}{prefix}} \end{matrix} \right.}} \\ {\mspace{79mu}{w_{l^{''}} = \left\{ \begin{matrix} 1 & {p \in \left\{ {15,17,19,21} \right\}} \\ \left( {- 1} \right)^{l^{''}} & {p \in \left\{ {16,18,20,22} \right\}} \end{matrix} \right.}} \\ {\mspace{79mu}{{l^{''} = 0},1}} \\ {\mspace{79mu}{{m = 0},1,\ldots\mspace{14mu},{N_{RB}^{DL} - 1}}} \\ {\mspace{79mu}{m^{\prime} = {m + \left\lfloor \frac{N_{RB}^{\max,{DL}} - N_{RB}^{DL}}{2} \right\rfloor}}} \end{matrix} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 12} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$

In Equation 12, (k′,l′) (wherein k′ is a subcarrier index within a resource block and l′ indicates an OFDM symbol index within a slot.) and the condition of n_s is determined depending on a CSI-RS configuration, such as Table 3 or Table 4.

Table 3 illustrates the mapping of (k′,l′) from a CSI-RS configuration in a normal CP.

TABLE 3 CSI reference Number of CSI reference signals configured signal 1 or 2 4 8 configuration k′, l′ n_(s) mod 2 k′, l′ n_(s) mod 2 k′, l′ n_(s) mod 2 Frame 0 (9, 5) 0 (9, 5) 0 (9, 5) 0 structure 1 (11, 2)  1 (11, 2)  1 (11, 2)  1 type 2 (9, 2) 1 (9, 2) 1 (9, 2) 1 1 and 2 3 (7, 2) 1 (7, 2) 1 (7, 2) 1 4 (9, 5) 1 (9, 5) 1 (9, 5) 1 5 (8, 5) 0 (8, 5) 0 6 (10, 2)  1 (10, 2)  1 7 (8, 2) 1 (8, 2) 1 8 (6, 2) 1 (6, 2) 1 9 (8, 5) 1 (8, 5) 1 10 (3, 5) 0 11 (2, 5) 0 12 (5, 2) 1 13 (4, 2) 1 14 (3, 2) 1 15 (2, 2) 1 16 (1, 2) 1 17 (0, 2) 1 18 (3, 5) 1 19 (2, 5) 1 Frame 20 (11, 1)  1 (11, 1)  1 (11, 1)  1 structure 21 (9, 1) 1 (9, 1) 1 (9, 1) 1 type 22 (7, 1) 1 (7, 1) 1 (7, 1) 1 2 only 23 (10, 1)  1 (10, 1)  1 24 (8, 1) 1 (8, 1) 1 25 (6, 1) 1 (6, 1) 1 26 (5, 1) 1 27 (4, 1) 1 28 (3, 1) 1 29 (2, 1) 1 30 (1, 1) 1 31 (0, 1) 1

Table 4 illustrates the mapping of (k′,l′) from a CSI-RS configuration in an extended CP.

TABLE 4 CSI reference Number of CSI reference signals configured signal 1 or 2 4 8 configuration k′, l′ n_(s) mod 2 k′, l′ n_(s) mod 2 k′, l′ n_(s) mod 2 Frame 0 (11, 4)  0 (11, 4)  0 (11, 4) 0 structure 1 (9, 4) 0 (9, 4) 0  (9, 4) 0 type 2 (10, 4)  1 (10, 4)  1 (10, 4) 1 1 and 2 3 (9, 4) 1 (9, 4) 1  (9, 4) 1 4 (5, 4) 0 (5, 4) 0 5 (3, 4) 0 (3, 4) 0 6 (4, 4) 1 (4, 4) 1 7 (3, 4) 1 (3, 4) 1 8 (8, 4) 0 9 (6, 4) 0 10 (2, 4) 0 11 (0, 4) 0 12 (7, 4) 1 13 (6, 4) 1 14 (1, 4) 1 15 (0, 4) 1 Frame 16 (11, 1)  1 (11, 1)  1 (11, 1) 1 structure 17 (10, 1)  1 (10, 1)  1 (10, 1) 1 type 18 (9, 1) 1 (9, 1) 1  (9, 1) 1 2 only 19 (5, 1) 1 (5, 1) 1 20 (4, 1) 1 (4, 1) 1 21 (3, 1) 1 (3, 1) 1 22 (8, 1) 1 23 (7, 1) 1 24 (6, 1) 1 25 (2, 1) 1 26 (1, 1) 1 27 (0, 1) 1

Referring to Table 3 and Table 4, in the transmission of a CSI-RS, in order to reduce inter-cell interference (ICI) in a multi-cell environment including a heterogeneous network (HetNet) environment, a maximum of 32 different configurations (in the case of a normal CP) or a maximum of 28 different configurations (in the case of an extended CP) are defined.

The CSI-RS configuration is different depending on the number of antenna ports and a CP within a cell, and a neighboring cell may have a maximum of different configurations. Furthermore, the CSI-RS configuration may be divided into a case where it is applied to both an FDD frame and a TDD frame and a case where it is applied to only a TDD frame depending on a frame structure.

(k′,l′) and n_s are determined depending on a CSI-RS configuration based on Table 3 and Table 4, and time-frequency resources used for CSI-RS transmission are determined depending on each CSI-RS antenna port.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating resources to which reference signals are mapped in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

FIG. 8(a) shows twenty types of CSI-RS configurations available for CSI-RS transmission by one or two CSI-RS antenna ports, FIG. 8(b) shows ten types of CSI-RS configurations available for four CSI-RS antenna ports, and FIG. 8(c) shows five types of CSI-RS configurations available for eight CSI-RS antenna ports.

As described above, radio resources (i.e., an RE pair) in which a CSI-RS is transmitted are determined depending on each CSI-RS configuration.

If one or two antenna ports are configured for CSI-RS transmission with respect to a specific cell, the CSI-RS is transmitted on radio resources on a configured CSI-RS configuration of the twenty types of CSI-RS configurations shown in FIG. 8(a).

Likewise, when four antenna ports are configured for CSI-RS transmission with respect to a specific cell, a CSI-RS is transmitted on radio resources on a configured CSI-RS configuration of the ten types of CSI-RS configurations shown in FIG. 8(b). Furthermore, when eight antenna ports are configured for CSI-RS transmission with respect to a specific cell, a CSI-RS is transmitted on radio resources on a configured CSI-RS configuration of the five types of CSI-RS configurations shown in FIG. 8(c).

A CSI-RS for each antenna port is subjected to CDM for every two antenna ports (i.e., {15,16}, {17,18}, {19,20} and {21,22}) on the same radio resources and transmitted. For example, in the case of antenna ports 15 and 16, CSI-RS complex symbols for the respective antenna ports 15 and 16 are the same, but are multiplied by different types of orthogonal code (e.g., Walsh code) and mapped to the same radio resources. The complex symbol of the CSI-RS for the antenna port 15 is multiplied by [1, 1], and the complex symbol of the CSI-RS for the antenna port 16 is multiplied by [1 −1] and mapped to the same radio resources. The same is true of the antenna ports {17,18}, {19,20} and {21,22}.

A UE may detect a CSI-RS for a specific antenna port by multiplying code by which a transmitted symbol has been multiplied. That is, a transmitted symbol is multiplied by the code [1 1] multiplied in order to detect the CSI-RS for the antenna port 15, and a transmitted symbol is multiplied by the code [1 −1] multiplied in order to detect the CSI-RS for the antenna port 16.

Referring to FIGS. 8(a) to 8(c), in the case of the same CSI-RS configuration index, radio resources according to a CSI-RS configuration having a large number of antenna ports include radio resources having a small number of CSI-RS antenna ports. For example, in the case of a CSI-RS configuration 0, radio resources for the number of eight antenna ports include both radio resources for the number of four antenna ports and radio resources for the number of one or two antenna ports.

A plurality of CSI-RS configurations may be used in one cell. 0 or one CSI-RS configuration may be used for a non-zero power (NZP) CSI-RS, and 0 or several CSI-RS configurations may be used for a zero power (ZP) CSI-RS.

For each bit set to 1 in a zeropower (ZP) CSI-RS (‘ZeroPowerCSI-RS) that is a bitmap of 16 bits configured by a high layer, a UE assumes zero transmission power in REs (except a case where an RE overlaps an RE assuming a NZP CSI-RS configured by a high layer) corresponding to the four CSI-RS columns of Table 3 and Table 4. The most significant bit (MSB) corresponds to the lowest CSI-RS configuration index, and next bits in the bitmap sequentially correspond to next CSI-RS configuration indices.

A CSI-RS is transmitted only in a downlink slot that satisfies the condition of (n_s mod 2) in Table 3 and Table 4 and a subframe that satisfies the CSI-RS subframe configurations.

In the case of the frame structure type 2 (TDD), a CSI-RS is not transmitted in a special subframe, a synchronization signal (SS), a subframe colliding against a PBCH or SystemInformationBlockType1 (SIB 1) Message transmission or a subframe configured to paging message transmission.

Furthermore, an RE in which a CSI-RS for any antenna port belonging to an antenna port set S (S={15}, S={15,16}, S={17,18}, S={19,20} or S={21,22}) is transmitted is not used for the transmission of a PDSCH or for the CSI-RS transmission of another antenna port.

Time-frequency resources used for CSI-RS transmission cannot be used for data transmission. Accordingly, data throughput is reduced as CSI-RS overhead is increased. By considering this, a CSI-RS is not configured to be transmitted every subframe, but is configured to be transmitted in each transmission period corresponding to a plurality of subframes. In this case, CSI-RS transmission overhead can be significantly reduced compared to a case where a CSI-RS is transmitted every subframe.

A subframe period (hereinafter referred to as a “CSI transmission period”) T_CSI-RS and a subframe offset Δ_CSI-RS for CSI-RS transmission are shown in Table 5.

Table 5 illustrates CSI-RS subframe configurations.

TABLE 5 CSI-RS- CSI-RS periodicity CSI-RS subframe offset SubframeConfig T_(CSI-RS) Δ_(CSI-RS) I_(CSI-RS) (subframes) (subframes) 0-4 5 I_(CSI-RS)  5-14 10 I_(CSI-RS) − 5  15-34 20 I_(CSI-RS) − 15 35-74 40 I_(CSI-RS) − 35  75-154 80 I_(CSI-RS) − 75

Referring to Table 5, the CSI-RS transmission period T_CSI-RS and the subframe offset Δ_CSI-RS are determined depending on the CSI-RS subframe configuration I_CSI-RS.

The CSI-RS subframe configuration of Table 5 may be configured as one of the aforementioned ‘SubframeConfig’ field and ‘zeroTxPowerSubframeConfig’ field. The CSI-RS subframe configuration may be separately configured with respect to an NZP CSI-RS and a ZP CSI-RS.

A subframe including a CSI-RS satisfies Equation 13. (10n _(f) +└n _(s)/2┘−Δ_(CSI-RS))mod T _(CSI-RS)=0  [Equation 13]

In Equation 13, T_CSI-RS means a CSI-RS transmission period, Δ_CSI-RS means a subframe offset value, n_f means a system frame number, and n_s means a slot number.

In the case of a UE in which the transmission mode 9 has been configured with respect to a serving cell, one CSI-RS resource configuration may be configured for the UE. In the case of a UE in which the transmission mode 10 has been configured with respect to a serving cell, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration (s) may be configured for the UE.

In the current LTE standard, a CSI-RS configuration includes an antenna port number (antennaPortsCount), a subframe configuration (subframeConfig), and a resource configuration (resourceConfig). Accordingly, the a CSI-RS configuration provides notification that a CSI-RS is transmitted how many antenna port, provides notification of the period and offset of a subframe in which a CSI-RS will be transmitted, and provides notification that a CSI-RS is transmitted in which RE location (i.e., a frequency and OFDM symbol index) in a corresponding subframe.

Specifically, the following parameters for each CSI-RS (resource) configuration are configured through high layer signaling.

-   -   If the transmission mode 10 has been configured, a CSI-RS         resource configuration identifier     -   A CSI-RS port number (antennaPortsCount): a parameter (e.g., one         CSI-RS port, two CSI-RS ports, four CSI-RS ports or eight CSI-RS         ports) indicative of the number of antenna ports used for CSI-RS         transmission     -   A CSI-RS configuration (resourceConfig) (refer to Table 3 and         Table 4): a parameter regarding a CSI-RS allocation resource         location     -   A CSI-RS subframe configuration (subframeConfig, that is,         I_CSI-RS) (refer to Table 5): a parameter regarding the period         and/or offset of a subframe in which a CSI-RS will be         transmitted     -   If the transmission mode 9 has been configured, transmission         power P_C for CSI feedback: in relation to the assumption of a         UE for reference PDSCH transmission power for feedback, when the         UE derives CSI feedback and takes a value within a [−8, 15] dB         range in a 1-dB step size, P_C is assumed to be the ratio of         energy per resource element (EPRE) per PDSCH RE and a CSI-RS         EPRE.     -   If the transmission mode 10 has been configured, transmission         power P_C for CSI feedback with respect to each CSI process. If         CSI subframe sets C_CSI,0 and C_CSI,1 are configured by a high         layer with respect to a CSI process, P_C is configured for each         CSI subframe set in the CSI process.     -   A pseudo-random sequence generator parameter n_ID     -   If the transmission mode 10 has been configured, a high layer         parameter ‘c_(i)d-CRS-Info-01’ including a QCL scrambling         identifier for a quasico-located (QCL) type B UE assumption         (qcl-Scramblingldentity-r11), a CRS port count         (crs-PortsCount-r11), and an MBSFN subframe configuration list         (mbsfn-SubframeConfigList-r11) parameter.

When a CSI feedback value derived by a UE has a value within the [−8, 15] dB range, P_C is assumed to be the ration of PDSCH EPRE to CSI-RS EPRE. In this case, the PDSCH EPRE corresponds to a symbol in which the ratio of PDSCH EPRE to CRS EPRE is ρ_A.

A CSI-RS and a PMCH are not configured in the same subframe of a serving cell at the same time.

In the frame structure type 2, if four CRS antenna ports have been configured, a CSI-RS configuration index belonging to the [20-31] set (refer to Table 3) in the case of a normal CP or a CSI-RS configuration index belonging to the [16-27] set (refer to Table 4) in the case of an extended CP is not configured in a UE.

A UE may assume that the CSI-RS antenna port of a CSI-RS resource configuration has a QCL relation with delay spread, Doppler spread, Doppler shift, an average gain and average delay.

A UE in which the transmission mode 10 and the QCL type B have been configured may assume that antenna ports 0-3 corresponding to a CSI-RS resource configuration and antenna ports 15-22 corresponding to a CSI-RS resource configuration have QCL relation with Doppler spread and Doppler shift.

In the case of a UE in which the transmission modes 1-9 have been configured, one ZP CSI-RS resource configuration may be configured in the UE with respect to a serving cell. In the case of a UE in which the transmission mode 10 has been configured, one or more ZP CSI-RS resource configurations may be configured in the UE with respect to a serving cell.

The following parameters for a ZP CSI-RS resource configuration may be configured through high layer signaling.

-   -   The ZP CSI-RS configuration list (zeroTxPowerResourceConfigList)         (refer to Table 3 and Table 4): a parameter regarding a         zero-power CSI-RS configuration     -   The ZP CSI-RS subframe configuration (eroTxPowerSubframeConfig,         that is, I_CSI-RS) (refer to Table 5): a parameter regarding the         period and/or offset of a subframe in which a zero-power CSI-RS         is transmitted

A ZP CSI-RS and a PMCH are not configured in the same subframe of a serving cell at the same time.

In the case of a UE in which the transmission mode 10 has been configured, one or more channel state information—interference measurement (CSI-IM) resource configurations may be configured in the UE with respect to a serving cell.

The following parameters for each CSI-IM resource configuration may be configured through high layer signaling.

-   -   The ZP CSI-RS configuration (refer to Table 3 and Table 4)     -   The ZP CSI RS subframe configuration I_CSI-RS (refer to Table 5)

A CSI-IM resource configuration is the same as any one of configured ZP CSI-RS resource configurations.

A CSI-IM resource and a PMCH are not configured within the same subframe of a serving cell at the same time.

Sounding Reference Signal (SRS)

An SRS is mainly used for channel quality measurement to perform uplink frequency-selective scheduling and is not related to transmission of uplink data and/or control information. However, the present invention is not limited thereto and the SRS may be used for various other purposes to enhance power control or to support various start-up functions of recently unscheduled terminals. As an example of the start-up function, an initial modulation and coding scheme (MCS), initial power control for data transmission, timing advance, and frequency semi-selective scheduling may be included. In this case, frequency semi-selective scheduling refers to scheduling that selectively allocates frequency resources to a first slot of a subframe and allocating the frequency resources by pseudo-randomly jumping to another frequency in a second slot.

Further, the SRS may be used for measuring a downlink channel quality under the assumption that radio channels are reciprocal between the uplink and the downlink. The assumption is particularly effective in a time division duplex (TDD) system in which the uplink and the downlink share the same frequency spectrum and are separated in a time domain.

The SRS subframes transmitted by a certain UE in a cell may be represented by a cell-specific broadcast signal. A 4 bit cell-specific ‘srsSubframeConfiguration’ parameter represents 15 available subframe arrays through which the SRS may be transmitted over each radio frame. The arrays provide flexibility for adjustment of SRS overhead according to a deployment scenario.

A 16-th array completely turns off a switch of the SRS in the cell and this is primarily suitable for a serving cell that serves high-speed terminals.

FIG. 9 illustrates an uplink subframe including a sounding reference signal symbol in a wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

Referring to FIG. 9, the SRS is continuously transmitted on the last SC-FDMA symbol on the arranged subframe. Therefore, the SRS and the DMRS are located in different SC-FDMA symbols.

PUSCH data transmission is not allowed in a specific SC-FDMA symbol for SRS transmission and as a result, when the sounding overhead is the highest, that is, even if SRS symbols are included in all subframes, the sounding overhead does not exceed approximately 7%.

Each SRS symbol is generated by a basic sequence (random sequence or a sequence set based on Zadoff-Ch (ZC)) for a given time unit and frequency band, and all terminals in the same cell use the same basic sequence. In this case, the SRS transmissions from a plurality of UEs in the same cell at the same time in the same frequency band are orthogonal by different cyclic shifts of the basic sequence, and are distinguished from each other.

By assigning different basic sequences to respective cells, the SRS sequences from different cells may be distinguished, but orthogonality between different basic sequences is not guaranteed.

As more and more communication devices require larger communication capacity, there is a need for improved mobile broadband communication compared to the existing radio access technology (RAT). Massive machine type communications (MTCs), which provide various services anytime and anywhere by connecting many devices and objects, are one of the major issues to be considered in the next generation communication. In addition, a communication system design considering a service/UE sensitive to reliability and latency is being discussed.

The introduction of next generation radio access technology considering enhanced mobile broadband communication, massive MTC, ultra-reliable and low latency communication (URLLC) is discussed, and in the present invention, the technology is called new RAT for convenience.

Self-Contained Subframe Structure

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a self-contained subframe structure in the wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

In a TDD system, in order to minimize the latency of data transmission, a 5 generation (5G) new RAT considers a self-contained subframe structure as shown in FIG. 10.

In FIG. 10, a dashed area (symbol index of 0) indicates a downlink (DL) control area and a black area (symbol index of 13) indicates an uplink (UL) control area. An unmarked area may also be used for DL data transmission or for UL data transmission. Such a structure is characterized in that DL transmission and UL transmission are sequentially performed in one subframe, and DL data is transmitted in a subframe, and UL ACK/NACK may also be received. As a result, it takes less time to retransmit data when a data transmission error occurs, thereby minimizing the latency of final data transmission.

In such a self-contained subframe structure, there is a need for a time gap between the base station and the UE for the conversion process from the transmission mode to the reception mode or from the reception mode to the transmission mode. For this end, some OFDM symbols at the time of switching from DL to UL in the self-contained subframe structure are configured to a guard period (GP).

Analog Beamforming

In a millimeter wave (mmW), a wavelength is shortened, so that a plurality of antenna elements may be installed in the same area. That is, a total of 64 (8×8) antenna elements may be installed in a 2-dimension array at a 0.5 lambda (that is, wavelength) interval on a panel of 4×4 (4 by 4) cm with a wavelength of 1 cm in a 30 GHz band. Therefore, in the mmW, it is possible to increase a beamforming (BF) gain to increase coverage or increase throughput by using multiple antenna elements.

In this case, if a transceiver unit (TXRU) is provided so that transmission power and phase may be adjusted for each antenna element, independent beamforming is possible for each frequency resource. However, when the TXRUs are installed on all 100 antenna elements, there is a problem that effectiveness is deteriorated in terms of costs. Therefore, a method of mapping a plurality of antenna elements to one TXRU and adjusting a direction of a beam using an analog phase shifter is considered. Such an analog BF method has a disadvantage in that frequency selective BF may not be performed by making only one beam direction in all bands.

A hybrid BF with B TXRUs, which is an intermediate form of digital BF and analog BF, and fewer than Q antenna elements, may be considered. In this case, although there is a difference depending on a connection method of B TXRUs and Q antenna elements, the number of directions of the beams that may be transmitted at the same time is limited to B or less.

Hereinafter, representative examples of a method of connection method of TXRUs and antenna elements will be described with reference to the accompanying drawing.

FIG. 11 shows a transceiver unit model in a radio communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

A TXRU virtualization model shows a relationship between an output signal of the TXRUs and an output signal of the antenna elements. According to the correlation between the antenna element and the TXRU, The TXRU virtualization model may be divided into TXRU virtualization model option-1 and a sub-array partition model as illustrated in FIG. 11(a) and TXRU virtualization model option-2 and a full-connection model as illustrated in FIG. 11 (b).

Referring to FIG. 11(a), in the case of the sub-array partition model, the antenna element is divided into multiple antenna element groups and each TXRU is connected to one of the groups. In this case, the antenna element is connected to only one TXRU.

Referring to FIG. 11(b), in the case of the full-connection model, signals of multiple TXRUs are combined and transmitted to a single antenna element (or an array of antenna elements). That is, a scheme is illustrated, in which the TXRU is connected to all antenna elements. In this case, the antenna element is connected to all TXRUs.

In FIG. 11, q represents a transmission signal vector of antenna elements having M co-polarized waves in one column. w represents a wideband TXRU virtualization weight vector and W represents a phase vector multiplied by an analog phase shifter. In other words, the direction of analog beamforming is determined by W. x represents a signal vector of M_TXRU TXRUs.

Herein, mapping of the antenna ports and the TXRUs may be 1-to-or 1-to-many.

In FIG. 11, the mapping (TXRU-to-element mapping) between the TXRU and the antenna element is merely an example, and the present invention is not limited thereto. The present invention may be similarly applied even to mapping between the TXRU and the antenna element, which may be implemented in various other forms in terms of hardware.

Feedback of Channel State Information (CSI)

In a 3GPP LTE/LTE-A system, user equipment (UE) is defined to report channel state information (CSI) to a base station (BS or eNB).

The CSI collectively refers to information that may indicate the quality of a radio channel (or referred to as a link) formed between the UE and the antenna port. For example, a rank indicator (RI), a precoding matrix indicator (PMI), a channel quality indicator (CQI), and the like correspond to the information.

Here, the RI represents rank information of a channel, which means the number of streams received by the UE through the same time-frequency resource. Since this value is determined depending on the long term fading of the channel, the value is fed back from the UE to the BS with a period usually longer than the PMI and the CQI. The PMI is a value reflecting a channel space characteristic and represents a preferred precoding index preferred by the UE based on a metric such as signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). The CQI is a value representing the strength of the channel, and generally refers to a reception SINR that may be obtained when the BS uses the PMI.

In the 3GPP LTE/LTE-A system, the BS configures a plurality of CSI processes to the UE and may receive CSI for each process. Here, the CSI process is constituted by a CSI-RS for signal quality measurement from the BS and a CSI-interference measurement (CSI-IM) resource for interference measurement.

Reference Signal (RS) virtualization

In the mmW, it is possible to transmit a PDSCH only in one analog beam direction at a time by analog beamforming. In this case, data transmission from the BS is possible only to a small number of UEs in the corresponding direction. Therefore, if necessary, the analog beam direction is differently configured for each antenna port so that data transmission may be simultaneously performed to a plurality of UEs in several analog beam directions.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating a service area for each transceiver unit in the wireless communication system to which the present invention may be applied.

In FIG. 12, 256 antenna elements are divided into 4 parts to form a 4 sub-arrays, and the structure of connecting the TXRU to the sub-array will be described as an example as shown in FIG. 11 above.

When each sub-array is constituted by a total of 64 (8×8) antenna elements in the form of a 2-dimensional array, specific analog beamforming may cover an area corresponding to a 15-degree horizontal angle area and a 15-degree vertical angle area. That is, the zone where the BS should be served is divided into a plurality of areas, and services are provided one by one at a time.

In the following description, it is assumed that the CSI-RS antenna ports and the TXRUs are 1-to-1 mapped. Therefore, the antenna port and the TXRU have the same meaning as the following description.

As shown in FIG. 12(a), if all TXRUs (antenna ports, sub-arrays) (that is, TXRU 0, 1, 2, 3) have the same analog beamforming direction (that is, region 1), the throughput of the corresponding zone may be increased by forming digital beam with higher resolution. Also, it is possible to increase the throughput of the corresponding zone by increasing the rank of the transmission data to the corresponding zone.

As shown in FIGS. 12(b) and 12(c), if each TXRU (antenna port, sub-array) (that is, TXRU 0, 1, 2, 3) has a different analog beamforming direction (that is, region 1 or region 2, the data may be transmitted simultaneously to UEs distributed in a wider area in the subframe (SF).

As an example shown in FIGS. 12(b) and 12(c), two of the four antenna ports are used for PDSCH transmission to UE1 in region 1 and the remaining two antenna ports are used for PDSCH transmission to UE2 in region 2.

Particularly, in FIG. 12(b), PDSCH1 transmitted to UE1 and PDSCH2 transmitted to UE2 represent examples of spatial division multiplexing (SDM). Unlike this, as shown in FIG. 12(c), PDSCH1 transmitted to UE1 and PDSCH2 transmitted to UE2 may also be transmitted by frequency division multiplexing (FDM).

Among a scheme of serving one area using all the antenna ports and a scheme of serving many areas at the same time by dividing the antenna ports, a preferred scheme is changed according to the rank and the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) servicing to the UE for maximizing the cell throughput. Also, the preferred method is changed according to the amount of data to be transmitted to each UE.

The BS calculates a cell throughput or scheduling metric which may be obtained when one area is served using all the antenna ports, and calculates the cell throughput or scheduling metric which may be obtained when two areas are served by dividing the antenna ports. The BS compares the cell throughput or the scheduling metric which may be obtained by each scheme to select the final transmission scheme. As a result, the number of antenna ports participating in PDSCH transmission is changed by SF-by-SF. In order for the BS to calculate the transmission MCS of the PDSCH according to the number of antenna ports and reflect the calculated transmission MCS to a scheduling algorithm, the CSI feedback from the appropriate UE is required.

Beam reference signal (BRS)

Beam reference signals are transmitted on one or more antenna ports (p={0, 1, . . . , 7}).

The reference-signal sequence ‘r_l (m)’ may be defined by Equation 14 below.

$\begin{matrix} {{{r_{l}(m)} = {{\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left( {1 - {2 \cdot {c\left( {2m} \right)}}} \right)} + {j\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left( {1 - {2 \cdot {c\left( {{2m} + 1} \right)}}} \right)}}},\mspace{79mu}{m = 0},1,\ldots\mspace{14mu},{{8 \cdot \left( {N_{RB}^{\max,{DL}} - 18} \right)} - 1}} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 14} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$

Where l=0, 1, . . . , 13 is the OFDM symbol number. N_RB{circumflex over ( )}max,DL represents the largest downlink band configuration and N_sc{circumflex over ( )}RB is expressed by a multiple. N_sc{circumflex over ( )}RB represents the size of the resource block in the frequency domain and is expressed by the number of subcarriers.

In Equation 14, c(i) may be predefined as a pseudo-random sequence. The pseudo-random sequence generator may be initialized at the start of each OFDM symbol by using Equation 15 below. c _(init)=2¹⁰·(7·(n _(s)+1)+l′+1)·(2·N _(ID) ^(cell)+1+2·N _(ID) ^(cell)+1  [Equation 15]

Where N_ID{circumflex over ( )}cell represents a physical layer cell identifier. n_s=floor(l/7) and floor(x) represents a floor function for deriving a maximum integer of x or less. l′=l mod 7 and mod represents a modulo operation.

Beam Refinement Reference Signal (BRRS)

Beam refinement reference signals (BRRSs) may be transmitted on up to eight antenna ports (p=600, . . . , 607). The transmission and reception of the BRRS are dynamically scheduled in the downlink resource allocation on xPDCCH.

The reference-signal sequence ‘r_l,ns(m)’ may be defined by Equation 16 below.

$\begin{matrix} {{{r_{l,n_{s}}(m)} = {{\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left( {1 - {2{c\left( {2m} \right)}}} \right)} + {j\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left( {1 - {2{c\left( {{2m} + 1} \right)}}} \right)}}},\mspace{79mu}{m = 0},1,\ldots\mspace{14mu},{\left\lfloor {\frac{3}{8}N_{RB}^{\max,{DL}}} \right\rfloor - 1}} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 16} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$

Where n_s represents the slot number in the radio frame. l represents the OFDM symbol number in the slot. c(i) may be predefined as the pseudo-random sequence. The pseudo-random sequence generator may be initialized at the start of each OFDM symbol by using Equation 17 below. c _(init)=2¹⁰·(7·(ñ _(s)+1)+l′+1)(2·N _(ID) ^(BRRS)+1)+2N _(ID) ^(BRRS)+1 ñ _(s) =n _(s) mod 20

Herein, N_ID{circumflex over ( )}BRRS is configured to the UE through the RRC signaling.

DL Phase Noise Compensation Reference Signal

Phase noise compensation reference signals associated with xPDSCH may be transmitted on antenna port(s) p=60 and/or p=61 according to the signaling in the DCI. Further, the phase noise compensation reference signals associated with xPDSCH may be present as a valid reference for phase noise compensation only if the xPDSCH transmission is associated with the corresponding antenna port. In addition, the phase noise compensation reference signals associated with xPDSCH may be transmitted only on the physical resource blocks and symbols upon which the corresponding xPDSCH is mapped. Moreover, the phase noise compensation reference signals associated with xPDSCH may be identical in all symbols with xPDSCH allocation.

For any antenna port p∈{60,61}, the reference-signal sequence ‘r(m)’ is defined by Equation 18 below.

$\begin{matrix} {{{r(m)} = {{\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left( {1 - {2 \cdot {c\left( {2m} \right)}}} \right)} + {j\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left( {1 - {2 \cdot {c\left( {{2m} + 1} \right)}}} \right)}}},\mspace{79mu}{m = 0},1,\ldots\mspace{14mu},{\left\lfloor {N_{RB}^{\max,{DL}}/4} \right\rfloor - 1}} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 18} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$

Herein, c(i) may be predefined as the pseudo-random sequence. The pseudo-random sequence generator may be initialized at the start of each subframe by using Equation 19 below. c _(init)=(└n _(s)/2┘+1)·(2n _(ID) ^((n) ^(SCID) ⁾+1)·2¹⁶ +n _(SCID)  [Equation 19]

Where n_SCID is 0 if unless specified otherwise. In the xPDSCH transmission, n_SCID is given in a DCI format associated with the xPDSCH transmission.

n_ID{circumflex over ( )}(i) (where i=0, 1) is given as follows. When the value of n_ID{circumflex over ( )}PCRS,i is not provided by the higher layer, n_ID{circumflex over ( )}(i) is equal to N_ID{circumflex over ( )}cell. If not, n_ID{circumflex over ( )}(i) is equal to n_ID{circumflex over ( )}PCRS,i.

The following techniques are discussed for new RAT (NR) uplink (UL) multi-input multi-output (MIMO).

i) Uplink transmission/reception schemes for data channels

-   -   Non reciprocity based UL MIMO (e.g., PMI based)     -   Reciprocity based UL MIMO (e.g., UE derives precoder based on         downlink RS measurement (including partial reciprocity)     -   Support of multi user (MU)-MIMO     -   Open-loop/Close-loop single/Multi point spatial multiplexing         (SM)

For example, for multi point SM, multi layers are received either jointly or independently by different transmit reception points (TRPs).

For multi point SM, multiple points may be coordinated.

-   -   Single/Multi panel spatial diversity     -   Uplink antenna/panel switching (UE side)     -   UL beamforming management for analog implementation     -   Combination of above techniques

ii) UL RS design considering the below functions

-   -   Sounding     -   Demodulation     -   Phase noise compensation

iii) UL transmit power/timing advance control in the context of UL MIMO

iv) Transmission scheme(s) for carrying UL control information

v) Other UL MIMO and related techniques are not limited.

The following aspects for UL MIMO transmission should be supported:

i) Transmission schemes/methods for reciprocity calibrated UEs, reciprocity non-calibrated UEs, and non-reciprocity/partial reciprocity cases

-   -   If needed, signaling associated with UL reciprocity based         operation is introduced. For example, UE capability which         indicates calibration accuracy     -   Whether to differentiate reciprocity non-calibrated UEs from         non-reciprocity or not is to be discussed.     -   The number of transmission schemes/methods may be further         discussed.

ii) At least one of the following candidate schemes/methods is to be supported.

-   -   Candidate 1: Codebook based transmission

Frequency selective and frequency non-selective precoding in digital domain may be considered for a widesystem bandwidth. The support for the frequency selective precoding is determined according to decision on NR waveform(s). The value of the wide system bandwidth will be discussed later.

For example, base station (BS)-based which is analogous to the LTE

For example, UE-aided and BS-centric mechanism: The UE recommends candidate UL precoders from a predefined codebook to BS based on DL RS measurement. In addition, the BS determines the final precoder taken from the codebook.

For example, UE-centric and BS-aided mechanism: The BS provides CSI (e.g. channel response, interference-related information) to the UE. In addition, the UE determines the final precoder based on the information from the BS.

Candidate 1: Non-Codebook Based Transmission

Frequency selective and frequency non-selective precoding in digital domain may be considered for the wide system bandwidth. The support for the frequency selective precoding is determined according to decision on NR waveform(s). The value of the wide system bandwidth will be discussed later.

For example, reciprocity based (DL RS based) transmission only for calibrated UEs

For example, UE-aided and BS-centric mechanism: The UE recommends candidate UL precoders to the BS based on DL RS measurement. In addition, the BS determines the final precoder.

For example, UE-centric and BS-aided mechanism: The BS provides CSI (e.g. channel response, interference-related information) to the UE. In addition, the UE determines the final precoder based on the information from the BS.

-   -   Other transmission schemes/methods are not limited.

i) Discussion of UL precoder signaling for frequency selective/non-selective precoding

Example 1: Signaling of Single or Multiple PMIs Via DL Control and/or Data Channels

Multiple PMIs may be signaled via a single DCI or multi-level DCI (1^(st) level DCI contains a location indication to the 2^(nd) level DCI).

Example 2: For TDD, Precoder Calculation at the UE Based on DL RS

The implementation of the frequency selective precoding is determined according to RANI decision (e.g. NR frame structure, waveform(s)).

An influence on other system design aspects (e.g. DL control channel decoding performance/complexity) should be considered.

ii) Discussion of the use of UL frequency selective precoding for precoded transmission including precoder cycling

iii) For frequency selective precoding, discussion of UL precoding granularity (i.e. UL subband size) considering following aspects

-   -   Implicit (defined by spec.) or explicit (by eNB/UE decision)         signaling support     -   Whether to align with DL

iv) Evaluation should include UL specific aspects such as cubic metric (CM) analysis according to UL waveform, etc.

v) Discussion of frequency non-selective precoding is of higher-priority.

In the existing LTE standard, when a base station transmits an uplink (UL) grant for UL-MIMO transmission of a UE (e.g., by DCI format 4) to the UE, the base station transmits precoding information (e.g., included in the DCI format) together. Accordingly, the UE performs UL transmission by applying the indicated (single wideband) precoder to scheduled physical resource block(s) (PRB(s)).

As described above, a method for instructing a frequency selective precoder even in the UL is also considered. As a result, it is possible to improve the transmission yield performance by applying a more optimized UL precoder for each subband.

However, unlike the DL, the UL needs to directly instruct the subband precoder at the time of UL grant of the base station, which may cause an excessive control channel overhead in proportion to the number of subbands.

Therefore, the present invention proposes schemes for applying the UL subband precoding while minimizing the UL-related DCI overhead.

In the present invention, a specific UL precoder ‘P’ is basically described to be divided into a type of P=U1*U2 and the like. Here, it may be divided into U1 as a relative wideband (and/or long-term) precoder attribute and U2 as a relative subband (and/or short-term) precoder attribute.

However, the present invention is not limited thereto, and the operation of the present invention to be described below may be performed based a single PMI (e.g., TPMI) and a precoder.

There is provided a method in which UI information is indicated to be common throughout the subbands and only U2 information is indicated for each subband to be instructed to the UE at the time of UL scheduling (or in association with the UL scheduling).

For example, assuming that a complete P is 6 bits, U1 is 4 bits, and U2 is 2 bits, 6 bits are allocated for each subband without applying a hierarchical structure proposed in the present invention. If the total number is N, a total of 6N bits is consumed in the corresponding UL precoder instruction. On the other hand, according to the proposed method of the present invention, since 6+2N bits are consumed, the number of subbands N increases, thereby contributing to reduction of a control channel overhead.

In this specification, for convenience of the description, a specific frequency axis resource unit is referred to as the “subband”, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and it should be understood that the “subband” is commonly referred to as the specific frequency axis resource unit. For example, the term of subband may be changed/mixed with each other in all/some description of the present invention, such as RB, PRB, PRB group (e.g., PRG (PRB Group)).

U1 Information Relation

For an environment (e.g., similar to an open-loop method, a case where a terminal speed is high, etc.) in which it is advantageous to selectively instruct widely-spaced beams for each subband, rather than an environment in which it is advantageous to selectively instruct closely-spaced beam for each subband due to channel characteristics, a U1 codebook may also be configured as a widely-spaced beam.

In the above described example, 4 bits of U1 means that a total of 16 different U1 information may be indicated. Each U1 information may include specific beam vectors to be selected in the U2. As an example, each U1 may be constituted by a set of discrete fourier transform (DFT) vectors as many as the number of UL transmission antenna ports of the UE (e.g., the number of the ports may be transmitted in advance by the UE in a SRS form).

In this case, each U1 index may be designed in the form of a closely-spaced beam group. As a result, it is advantageous that the base station instructs UL scheduling by configuring the UI by peripheral candidate beam vectors including a final specific beam direction which intends to instruct the corresponding UE at the time of the UL scheduling. That is, since U1 is the relative wideband (and/or long-term) precoder attribute, it is advantageous that the beams to select/instruct the final beam optimized for each subband are stored in U1, and each U1 information should be designed so that such an effect may be appropriately exhibited.

In the present invention, it is possible to define/configure at least one different codebook such as a “closely-spaced beam group”, a “widely-spaced beam group”, and/or a “beam group composed of a specific form (e.g., eNB-configurable). In addition, the base station may configure/instruct which U1 and/or U2 codebook the UE needs to apply at the time of the UL scheduling (e.g., by DCI) or separate signaling before the UL scheduling. As a result, although such a U1 codebook itself may be fixed as one, like the present invention, there is an advantage that a more flexible codebook may be operated by supporting a function of changing/activating/re-activating by configuring/instructing the base station.

U2 Information Relation

In the above described example, 2 bits of U1 means that a total of 4 different U2 information may be indicated. Each U2 information may be configured in a form in which a beam group corresponding to the above indicated U1 index may include four specific beam vectors and the 2-bit U2 selection index indicates which beam among the beams is to be finally applied for each subband.

In addition, in the example described above, when UI is 4 bits, U2 may exceed 2 bits. For example, if U2 is 4 bits, 2 bits are allocated as a “beam selector” so that total four different pieces of U2 information may be indicated. In order to connect the corresponding beam in the form of co-phasing (e.g., QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) “co-phasing”)), 2 bits may be allocated and thus the total U2 may be configured as 4 bits. The co-phasing is configured in the form of cross-polarized antennas between the specific (two) transmission antenna port groups of the UE and the same beam may be applied so as to configure a precoder in the form of co-phasing by applying a group-phase between the same groups of ports.

Alternatively, it is apparent that “co-phasing” may allocate only 1 bit to apply, for example, BPSK co-phasing and the bit width of the “beam selector” may be modified/changed according to the transmission antenna port configuration of the UE and the U1/U2 codebook structure.

The U2 information is mapped/indicated for each subband, and may be configured/indicated together by interlocking with the UL resource allocation (RA) field scheduled for the corresponding UE.

For example, if resource allocation information of the corresponding UL grant message is in the form of a specific PRB bitmap (e.g., if each bit is ‘1’, the corresponding PRB is included in the scheduled PRB and if each bit is ‘0’, the corresponding PRB is not included), the structure may extend so as to store K-bit information for each PRB index without using a bitmap of ‘1’ or ‘0’. That is, the information may correspond to one PRB for each K bit in the bit map. As such, in one embodiment of the present invention, there is proposed a structure to transmit the U2 information through the corresponding 2{circumflex over ( )}K state for each PRB.

For example, if K=2, a specific default state may be defined/configured for each PRB as follows.

-   -   ‘00’ indicates that “the corresponding PRB is not included in         the scheduled PRB”     -   ‘01’ indicates that “the corresponding PRB is included in the         scheduled PRB and the first precoder in U1 is applied”     -   ‘10’ indicates that “the corresponding PRB is included in the         scheduled PRB and the second precoder in U1 is applied”     -   ‘11’ indicates that “the corresponding PRB is included in the         scheduled PRB and the third precoder in U1 is applied”

Such an encoding method is just an example, and the description of the state such as ‘01’, ‘10’, and ‘11’ may be defined in a different form or the base station may be changed/configured by a higher layer signal such as RRC signaling. As described above, when the description of the state is defined/supported in the form of parameters configurable by the base stain (e.g., by RRC signaling), it is advantageous that the configuration flexibility of the base station may be increased.

As such, as the scheduling information and the U2 information are jointly encoded in one bitmap, it is possible to reduce the signaling overhead compared with the case of configuring a bitmap for transmitting the scheduling information and a bitmap for transmitting the U2 information, respectively.

In addition, the RA field is maintained as a 1-bit unit bitmap, and may be applied even in the form that a bitmap in units of K-bits for transmitting the U2 information per subband (per PRB/PRG) is provided as a separate field (or provided separately (at an independent time) as a separate DCI). That is, a separate field indicating K-bit (U2) precoder information for each subband corresponding to a specific PRB(s) in the scheduled PRB area indicated in the RA field may be defined/configured.

Operation Relation Associated with Specific Uplink Reference Signal (UL RS) (e.g., SRS) (for Link Adaptation (LA)

-   -   In association with some of the operations proposed in the         present invention, a specific RS (e.g., SRS) transmission may be         configured/implemented by the UE in order to determine the UL         precoder at the base station.

Hereinafter, for convenience of description, the uplink RS is referred to as SRS, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

1) Type 1 UL-LA UE (UL-LA process operation by starting Precoded SRS transmission):

Such a SRS may be first defined/configured to transmit a specific Precoded SRS. In this case, the base station measures the precoded SRS of the specific port(s) to determine the proposed U1 and/or U2 information. Thereafter, the base station transmits a UL scheduling grant (e.g., in case of U1, may be separately transmitted to the UE via a separate DCI (field) or a separate message container for specific control information delivery (by L1 and/or L2 signaling) including the determined U1 and/or U2 information. Accordingly, there is disclosed frequency-selective UL-MIMO scheduling considered in the present invention.

A type in which a UL link adaptation (UL-LA) process is initiated by starting the precoded SRS transmission without (that is, omitting) the transmission procedure of the specific non-precoded SRS may be referred to as a Type 1 UL-LA operation (or UE).

That is, the UE may transmit precoded/beamformed SRS ports applying, for example, analog beamforming in a specific direction through the corresponding specific precoded SRS. In addition, the base station measures the (analog-)beamformed SRS ports to derive appropriate U1 and/or U2 and then informs the derived U1 and/or U2 to the UE by the method described above to apply the UL transmission.

More specifically, the corresponding beamforming vectors/coefficients to be applied to the precoded/beamformed SRS by the UE may be determined as follows. First, the UE may measure a DL specific RS (e.g., radio resource management-RS (RRM-RS), BRS, BRRS, etc.) transmitted by the base station. In addition, the UE finds (and also reports) the best “serving-beam” to determine (paired) best “Rx-receiving-beam” of the UE itself. Then, the UE may transmit the SRS by applying the corresponding beamforming vectors/coefficients, when transmitting the precoded/beamformed SRS, by inverting (e.g., taking Hermitian) the best “Rx-receiving-beam” using the DL/UL channel reciprocity characteristic. That is, the SRS transmission may be performed with the same spatial filtering as the spatial filtering used for the reception of a specific DL RS (e.g., the best “serving-beam”). The operation of the UE may be defined in advance or configured in the UE.

Alternatively, it is not necessarily limited to applying only the “Rx-receiving-beam” corresponding to the best “serving-beam”. For example, the operation may be supported such that the base station may instruct/trigger precoded/beamformed SRS transmissions applying the “Rx-receiving-beam” corresponding to the second-best “serving-beam”.

Such a method is generalized, and thus, in the same manner as corresponding to a third-best “serving-beam”, corresponding to a fourth-best “serving-beam”, . . . , a specific identifier (e.g., beam state information (BSI), etc.) may be instructed from the base station so as to recognize the corresponding n-th “serving-beam”. In such as form, the beamforming vectors/coefficients to be applied by the UE, when transmitting the precoded/beamformed SRS, may be configured/indicated.

In other words, the UE may transmit the beamforming vectors/coefficients using the same spatial filtering as the spatial filtering used for reception of the specific DL RS when transmitting the SRS. That is, the UE may implement spatial filtering that is optimal for DL RS reception for each DL RS, and the base station may instruct the UE to perform transmission of a specific SRS resource using the same spatial filtering as the spatial filtering used by the UE for receiving a specific DL RS.

Alternatively, a method of directly configuring/instructing, by the base station, beamforming vectors/coefficients to be applied by the UE when transmitting the precoded SRS to the UE may be applied (e.g., a case where the base station may acquire the information based on channel reciprocity, for example, according to another specific method, and the like). The base station may directly inform the beamforming vectors/coefficients to the UE through a control channel such as a specific DCI triggering the transmission of the corresponding precoded SRS or through a separate specific layer 1 (L1), layer 2 (L2), and/or layer 3 (L3) (e.g. semi-static by RRC) signaling.

As a result, the Type 1 UL-LA UE to which the operation is applicable may be limited as i) “channel-reciprocity calibrated UE (e.g., NR (or 5G) UE, 3GPP release-15 and later UEs, etc.)”, ii) “UE not performing fully-digital-beamforming in the transmitter (TX) (and/or transmitter and receiver (TRX)) antennas/ports of the UE”, iii) “UE applying analog-beamforming to UL TX ports”, and/or iv) “UE operating in TDD”.

In addition/alternatively, the UE provides its own specific capability (e.g., whether or not the Type 1-related support is available, etc.) associated with this to the base station in advance, and thus, the above operation/process may be configured/initiated.

2) Type 2 UL-LA UE (UL-LA Process Operation by Starting Precoded SRS Transmission)

Regarding such an SRS, the UE may be defined/configured to transmit a Non-precoded SRS. In this case, the base station measures the non-precoded SRS of the specific port(s) to determine the proposed U1 and/or U2 information. Thereafter, the base station transmits a UL scheduling grant (e.g., in case of U1, may be separately transmitted to the UE via a separate DCI (field) or a separate message container for specific control information delivery (by L1 and/or L2 signaling) including the determined U1 and/or U2 information. Accordingly, there is disclosed frequency-selective UL-MIMO scheduling considered in the present invention.

As such, a type, in which a UL link adaptation (UL-LA) process is initiated only by transmission of a specific non-precoded SRS and the base station informs the final UL precoder such as U1 and/or U2, etc. determined by measuring the non-precoded SRS of the specific port(s) to the UE when the UL scheduling, is referred to as a Type 2 UL-LA operation (or UE).

More specifically, this Type 2 UE may mean UE in which TX (and/or TRX) antennas/ports of the UE are fully-digital-beamformable.

As a result, the Type 2 UL-LA UE to which the operation is applicable may be limited as i) “channel-reciprocity non-calibrated UE” (e.g., LTE/LTE-A UE, UE up to 3GPP release-14), ii) “fully-digital-beamforming possible UE”, and/or iii) “UE operating in FDD (and/or TDD)”, etc.

In addition/alternatively, the UE provides its own specific capability (e.g., whether or not the Type 2-related support is available, etc.) associated with this to the base station in advance, and thus, the above operation/process may be configured/initiated.

3) Type 3 UL-LA UE (UL-LA process operation by receiving specific beamforming information from the base station by starting (S1 ports) Non-precoded SRS transmission and initiating (S2(<=S1)) ports precoded SRS transmission by applying the received information

Alternatively, regarding such an SRS, the UE may be configured/indicated to transmit a specific (S1 ports) non-precoded SRS primarily (with a long-term period) by the UE so that the base station derives primary beamforming vectors/coefficients. In addition, the base station instructs the beamforming vectors/coefficients to the UE to transmit a secondary specific (S2(<=S1) ports) precoded SRS. In this case, there is only a difference in that a coarse beam estimation operation by the primary non-precoded SRS is added. In other words, the base station measures the (S2(<=S1) ports) Precoded SRS to determine the proposed U1 and/or U2 information. Thereafter, the base station transmits a UL scheduling grant (e.g., in case of U1, may be separately transmitted to the UE via a separate DCI (field) or a separate message container for specific control information delivery (by L1 and/or L2 signaling) including the determined U1 and/or U2 information. Accordingly, there is disclosed frequency-selective UL-MIMO scheduling considered in the present invention.

At this time, as a method for configuring/instructing to the UE to apply the beamforming vectors/coefficients derived (by receiving the non-precoded SRS in the base station) to the corresponding precoded SRS, the base station may directly inform the beamforming vectors/coefficients to the UE through a control channel such as a specific DCI triggering the transmission of the corresponding precoded SRS or separately specific L1, L2, and/or L3 (e.g., semi-static by RRC) signaling.

As such, a type, in which transmission of a specific non-precoded SRS is included and transmission of a specific precoded SRS is initiated by receiving the information related to the application of the beamforming from the base station and applying the received information, and the base station informs the final UL precoder such as U1 and/or U2, etc. determined by measuring the precoded SRS to the UE when UL scheduling is referred to as a Type 3 UL-LA operation (or UE).

More specifically, this Type 3 UE may mean UE in which TX (and/or TRX) antennas/ports of the UE are fully-digital-beamformable.

As a result, the Type 2 UL-LA UE to which the operation is applicable may be limited as i) “channel-reciprocity non-calibrated UE”, ii) “UE not performing fully-digital-beamforming in the TX (and/or TRX) antennas/ports of the UE”, iii) “UE applying analog-beamforming to UL TX ports”, and/or iv) “UE operating in FDD (and/or TDD)”.

In addition/alternatively, the UE provides its own specific capability (e.g., whether or not the Type 3-related support is available, etc.) associated with this to the base station in advance, and thus, the above operation/process may be configured/initiated.

-   -   In addition/alternatively, a specific SRS resource(s) is         configured in advance in the UE, and the UE may be configured to         transmit a separate precoded SRS based on each SRS resource         configuration. At this time, the number of SRS ports per SRS         resource may be one or more.

That is, the UE may perform the SRS transmission based on the number of SRS ports corresponding to each SRS resource and corresponding configuration.

At this time, the beamforming vectors/coefficients to be applied at this time are selected arbitrarily (eNB-transparently, randomly) or selected according to the indication of the base station and the UE may transmit the precoded SRS for each SRS resource. In this case, the base station first selects a SRS resource with the highest reception quality through the SRS measurement for each SRS resource and derives the U1 and/or U2 with respect to the SRS ports in the SRS resource and indicates the U1 and/or U2 to the UE. That is, the base station derives the U1 and/or U2 to be applied to the SRS ports in the corresponding SRS resource to indicate the derived U1 and/or U2 to the UE.

In this case, a UL scheduling grant (e.g., U1 and/or SRI) including not only the proposed U1 and/or U2 information but also the best SRS resource indicator (e.g., U1 and/or SRI may be separately transmitted to the UE through a separate DCI (field) or a separate message container for transmitting specific control information (by L1, L2, and/or L3 (e.g., semi-static by RRC) signaling)) is transmitted. Accordingly, there is disclosed a frequency-selective UL-MIMO scheduling considered in the present invention.

In other words, the base station configures multiple SRS resources to the UE, and the UE may transmit a precoded SRS having different beam directions for each SRS resource to the base station. In addition, the base station informs the UE of the uplink scheduling grant (DCI) including the SRI and the precoding indication (e.g., U1 and/or U2, or transmitted precoding matrix indicator (TPMI)) transmitted by the UE in the previous time instance. In this case, the precoding indication may be used to indicate preferred precoder over the SRS ports in the selected SRS resource by the SRI.

For example, if a specific SRS resource is configured to transmit a 1-port SRS, when the UE implements X transmission antenna(s)/port(s), the UE may be defined/configured to transmit a type of “rank 1 precoded SRS” by applying specific X-by-1 beamforming vector/coefficients.

Similarly, if the specific SRS resource is configured to transmit a v(>1)-port SRS, when the UE implements X(>=v) transmission antenna(s)/port(s), the UE may be defined/configured to transmit a type of “rank v precoded SRS” by applying specific X-by-v beamforming vector/coefficients.

That is, there may be a characteristic of the corresponding “SRS port number=(target) rank number” configured for each SRS resource.

Accordingly, when the base station configures/instructs the SRI to the UE, it may be recognized that the SRI includes a meaning of a kind of rank indication. In addition, the SRI may be defined/configured to be applied at the time of interpretation of other fields within the corresponding UL grant based on the indicated rank.

In other words, the number of SRS antenna ports may be predefined or configured for each SRS resource (for example, by higher layer signaling such as RRC), and when the base station transmits the UL grant including the SRI to the UE, the number of ranks for transmission of uplink data (e.g., PUSCH) of the UE may be determined as the number of antenna ports corresponding to the SRS resources indicated by the SRI.

As another example, the operation may be defined/configured/indicated so that a precoder applied to the corresponding implicitly-indicated SRS resource index is applied when the UL transmission by automatically interworking which SRS resource index is indicated through the rank indication (field) indicated by the UL grant and the like without the information indication of the SRI (however, it is preferable that only one SRS resource associated with a specific rank is limited to one to one linkage).

Alternatively, as a more flexible UL scheduling related signaling, the base station may be defined/configured to independently inform the rank indication as well as the SRI to the UE. This is a case where one or more SRS resources (s) may be configured for a specific target rank. The reason why the base station configures a plurality of SRS resources for a certain rank is that the UE applies different beamforming vectors/coefficients with respect to the same rank and tries to transmit the SRS several times. That is, the base station measures the precoded SRS with different beam coefficients for the same rank to provide the flexibility to determine and instruct which UL precoder is more advantageous (in terms of performance) even when the corresponding rank is finally selected.

In addition/alternatively, when the UE applies specific “beamforming vectors/coefficients” to the corresponding precoded SRS, the UE may be configured to apply the “beamforming vectors/coefficients” as the beamforming vectors/coefficients which are common over the transmission band as a wideband attribute.

In addition, an operation may be defined or configured to the UE to transmit a subband precoded SRS for the corresponding SRS resource in the form of applying different/independent beamforming vectors/coefficients in a specific subband (or PRB (group)) unit frequency-selectively over the transmission band.

In addition, That is, the base station may designate whether the wideband precoding or subband precoding is applied to the precoded SRS to the UE by L1 (by DCI), L2 (by MAC control element (CE)), and/or L3 (by RRC) signaling.

Even when specific “frequency-selective (subband) beamforming vectors/coefficients” are applied when transmitting specific precoded SRS, the following operation may be defined or configured to the UE.

i) The base station informs the UE of the corresponding “frequency-selective (subband) beamforming vectors/coefficients” (separately or when indicating/triggering the corresponding SRS transmission) so that the UE follows the information.

ii) The UE may select arbitrarily (eNB-transparently, randomly) to transmit (frequency-selective) precoded SRS for each SRS resource.

iii) The UE may find (alternatively, find and report) the best “serving-beam” by measuring Y (e.g., Y=1) DL specific RS (e.g., RRM-RS, BRS, BRRS, etc.) ports transmitted by the base station. In addition, the UE may determine a X-by-Y precoder/beamformer vector/coefficient frequency-selectively (as a dimension by the number X of TRX antennas/ports of the UE) for each subband when the UE determines its own (paired) best “Rx-receiving-beam” to apply the determined X-by-Y precoder/beamformer vector/coefficient reversely (e.g., taking Hermitian) when transmitting the corresponding precoded SRS.

When such RRM-RS type (e.g., BRS, BRRS, etc.) is used, it is limited to Y=1, so that the transmission SRS of the UE may be limited to only a rank 1 precoded SRS.

Further, it is possible to explicitly indicate whether to calculate the X-by-Y precoder for a specific RRM-RS (e.g., BRS, BRRS, etc.) signaling type. In addition, the specific RRM-RS (e.g., BRS, BRRS, etc.) (ports) may be indicated as a quasi co-located (QCL) signaling type.

iv) The UE may determine its own (paired) best “Rx-receiving-beam” by measuring Z(>=1) DL specific (for CSI measurement) RS (e.g., CSI-RS) ports transmitted from the base station. In this case, the UE determine a X-by-Z precoder/beamformer vector/coefficient frequency-selectively (as a dimension by the number X of TRX antennas/ports of the UE) for each subband and apply the determined X-by-Z precoder/beamformer vector/coefficient reversely (e.g., taking Hermitian) when transmitting the corresponding precoded SRS. The operation may be defined or configured to the UE.

In other words, the UE may transmit the SRS using spatial filtering which is the same as spatial filtering used for the reception of a specific DL RS when transmitting the SRS transmission in the specific subband. That is, the UE may implement spatial filtering that is optimal for DL RS reception for each DL RS, and the base station may indicate the UE to perform transmission of a SRS resource in the specific subband using the same spatial filtering as the spatial filtering used by the UE for receiving a specific DL RS.

When CSI-RS is used as such, it may be limited to Z>1, or may be flexibly defined or configured to the UE as Z>=1. The reason for not using the above RRM-RS (e.g., BRS, BRRS) is that it may be limited to only rank 1 because it may be limited to a single port, so it is effective to use CSI-RS to support rank >1.

Further, the UE may be explicitly indicated to calculate the X-by-Z precoder for which specific CSI-RS (port(s)). In addition, the specific CSI-RS (port(s)) may be indicated as a QCL signaling type. In addition/alternatively, the UE may be defined/configured that the corresponding CSI-RSs (port(s)) have a QCL linkage with which RRM-RS (e.g., BRS, BRRS) together or separately.

-   -   It will be apparent that all (or some) of the proposed         operations associated with the SRS may be applied to the schemes         (e.g., a single PMI (TPMI), precoder based scheme) which do not         follow the U1 and/or U2 structure. For example, to determine a         specific single UL precoder U, the operations may be         modified/applied as operations such as giving a specific UL         precoder indication for non-precoded/precoded SRS transmissions         (by the SRS resource(s) based configuration), or the like.     -   The expression “SRS resource” is a name given for convenience         and as such, the SRS resource may be signaled/indicated to the         UE in a form in which a specific index is actually given per SRS         resource unit. Alternatively, the operation of the present         invention may be applied by another name/parameter which         replaces the concept of the “SRS resource” by binding         specific/some/virtualized SRS ports(s) grouped by specific         grouping with respect to (entire) SRS ports transmittable by the         UE.

Additional Proposals

In such an operation, semi-open loop (OL) UL transmission may be configured/indicated to the UE in the form of deleting all U2 information for each subband.

For example, the base station may transmit an UL grant of a type without the U2 information to the UE as described above through a specific (separate) signaling (or using one of the U1 indexes) and this may operate as instructing the UE to perform specific (semi-)OL UL transmission.

When the UE is configured/instructed as described above, the UE may ignore the information even if the U2 information exists in the UL grant.

Alternatively, when the UE is configured/directed as described above, the payloads where U2 information may exist may be deleted from the (UL-related) DCI. In this case, the UE may be defined or configured to perform blind detection (BD) for different payload sizes in a form in which the total payload size of the corresponding DCI is reduced against the case the U2 information exists.

Further, the (semi-)OL UL transmission may be instructed in a form of deleting only the precoder(s) information in the direction of a specific (spatial) dimension of U1 and/or U2.

For example, when the UE determines that the channel change is insignificant in the vertical direction and the channel change is relatively severe in the horizontal direction, the UI and/or U2 information may be indicated in conjunction with UL scheduling in a form in which specific precoder(s) information of a horizontal component is deleted (or ignored or replaced with other information). In this case, the UE may UL-transmit the corresponding part by applying an OL scheme such as precoder cycling according to a specific pre-defined/indicated OL-precoding scheme. In addition, the UE may perform UL transmission by applying the precoder(s) part as instructed for the specific (spatial) dimension for which the U1 and/or U2 information is provided.

As described above, when the specific (spatial) dimension precoder(s) information is deleted and indicated, the payload part may be deleted. In this case, the UE may be defined or configured to perform the BD for different payload sizes in a form in which the overall payload of the corresponding DCI is reduced in comparison with the conventional one.

Mapping of the payload sizes of the U1 and U2 and the corresponding information as above may be defined to correspond to the number of UL (link adaptation) specific RS (for example, SRS) ports of the corresponding UE, which are transmitted in advance (in link with the mapping) or configured/instructed to the UE.

UL MIMO Design Framework

In LTE UL MIMO, the network indicates precoder to UE, then UE transmits the DMRS and data by applying the indicated precoder. In NR UL MIMO, precoded RS based transmission where the same precoder is applied to both the DMRS and the physical data channel is still desirable in terms of DMRS overhead. The reason is that the transmission rank would be smaller than the number of TXRUs due to lack of scatterers in most cases.

Therefore, it is preferable that the precoded RS based transmission where the same precoder is applied to both the DMRS and the physical data channel becomes a baseline in NR UL MIMO.

Regarding transmission technique, it was agreed to support UL DMRS based spatial multiplexing (single user (SU)-MIMO/MU-MIMO). UL coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmission may also be supported. That is, UL reception point(s) may be transparent to UE.

For UL SU-MIMO, both an open loop (OL) technique where no precoder information is signaled by the network to the UE and a semi-open-loop (OL) technique where a part of precoder information is signaled by the network to the UE may be considered in addition to a conventional closed loop technique where full information (i.e., PMI and RI) of precoder is signaled by the network to the UE. OL and semi-OL MIMO may be useful when full or partial DL/UL reciprocity is valid in TDD. UL MU-MIMO may be based on a closed loop operation, but is not limited thereto.

The UL MIMO transmission techniques may be classified with respect to existence and completeness of the precoder information signaled from the network to the UE as follows:

-   -   Closed loop: Full precoder information is signaled to UE     -   Open loop: No precoder information is not signaled to UE     -   Semi-open loop: A part of precoder information is signaled to UE

Further, it was agreed to support at least 8 orthogonal DL DMRS ports for both DL SU-MIMO and DL MU-MIMO. Similarly to DL, the reference of UL may be LTE so that we propose to support at least 4 orthogonal DMRS ports for both UL SU-MIMO and UL MU-MIMO as the baseline. From SU-MIMO perspective, no clear motivation of supporting higher layers than LTE exists by considering the possibility of a higher rank in practical environments (i.e., limited number of dominant rays at high frequency bands and limited number of TXRUs at the UE). However, when forward compatibility is considered, increasing the maximum layers from the beginning may be considered (e.g. 8 layers for UL SU-MIMO by taking large UE types into account). From MU-MMO perspective, NR has clear motivation of achieving higher order MU-MIMO to achieve target spectral efficiency. However, it would be desirable to support MU multiplexing layers exceeding certain number (e.g. 4 or 8) by utilizing non-orthogonal DMRS ports (e.g. scrambling sequence) in order to manage the DMRS overhead within a reasonable range.

Therefore, it is preferable that a least 4 orthogonal UL DMRS ports are supported for both SU-MIMO and MU-MIMO.

With regard to the number of codewords for spatial multiplexing, supporting up to two codewords as LTE may be reasonable by considering a trade-off relationship between link adaptation flexibility and the control signaling overhead.

Therefore, it is preferable that for NR UL MIMO, up to two codes are basically supported.

Frequency Selective Precoding for UL MIMO

There was an agreement that cyclic prefix (CP)-OFDM without specified low-peak to average power ratio (PAPR)/cubic metric (CM) technique(s) is recommended to be supported for uplink NR waveform for at least up to 40 GHz for enhanced Mobile BroadBand (eMBB) and ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) services.

Considering a CP-OFDM waveform and an increased supportable system bandwidth in NR, frequency selective precoding may be considered to be introduced for UL MIMO. However, the increased control channel overhead due to the indicated subband PMIs may be a critical problem for applying such frequency selective UL-MIMO precoding. Although it may be considered to signal multiple PMIs separately from UL-related DCI and to include a pointer field in the DCI for indicating such signaling, this kind of two-step approach may not be desired due to latency for providing the full information of subband-wise multiple PMIs in a first step. In other words, a motivation of introducing such frequency selective UL precoder is to achieve fast UL link adaptation exploiting the frequency domain as well, so that the full set of precoder information is desired to be delivered instantaneously to the UE when the set of precoder information is scheduled for the UL transmission.

To resolve the control channel overhead issue for frequency-selective UL-MIMO scheduling, applying the dual codebook structure as in DL similarly to the UL case (e.g., 4-Tx case) needs to be investigated. Considering the agreed CP-OFDM structure for UL, a final UL precoder W per subband may be decomposed into a wideband PMI component W_1 and the corresponding subband PMI component W_2. Then, in the UL scheduling DCI, the W_1 information is enough to be included once, and multiple W_2s are required to be included depending on the scheduled RB region given by a resource allocation field in the same DCI. How to define the codebook for W_1 and W_2 is for further study, but the baseline should be reusing Rel-12 DL 4-Tx codebook. The existing LTE 2-Tx DL codebook may be reused as it is for the 2-Tx UL case and the whole per-subband PMIs need to be provided in the UL scheduling grant. It should also be investigated whether the DFT spread OFDM (DFT-S-OFDM) based UL-MIMO precoder is supported and in that case, how to configure the UE with either using the CP-OFDM based UL precoder or using the DFT-S-OFDM based UL precoder as discussed above.

That is, the UE may be configured with at least one of CP-OFDM-based codebook 1 (e.g., the dual codebook structure) and DFS-S-OFDM based codebook 2 (e.g., cubic-metric preserving codebook, etc.) from the base station. In addition, the UE may be configured with on which codebook based UL precoding is to be performed based among the above codebooks from the base station by L1 (e.g., by DCI), L2 (e.g., by MAC CE), and L3 (e.g., by RRC).

Particularly, when the CP-OFDM-based UL transmission is configured/instructed, the UE may be configured/instructed (and/or switched) with one of codebook 1 and codebook 2 from the base station and may apply the configured/instructed codebook and conversely, when the DFS-OFDM based UL transmission is configured/instructed, it may be limited that the UE may continuously apply only codebook 2. The reason is that under the DFS-S-OFDM scheme, the application of codebook 1 may be inappropriate in that the application of codebook 1 greatly amplifies the PAPR and the like.

More particularly, which codebook is applied in conjunction with a specific rank value may be defined or configured to the UE. For example, in the case of transmission of rank X (for example, X=1), codebook 2 may be defined to be applied or may be configured to the UE in terms of transmission power, such as PAPR issues. On the contrary, in the case of rank Y (for example, Y=2) or more, codebook 1 is configured (for example, in general, UE other than a cell-edge region) to be applied to be defined or configured to the UE to apply the precoder capable of maximizing throughput rather than an aspect of the transmission power.

When such operations are applied, when the rank is indicated through the UL grant or the like, the UE may automatically analyze/apply the indicated PMI/precoder while applying the different codebook as above in conjunction with the indicated rank.

In the above description, as an example, an operation is described, in which a specific codebook (for example, codebook 1 or codebook 2, . . . ) is adopted in conjunction with being configured based on a specific waveform (e.g., based on the CP-OFDM or DFS-S-OFDM).

However, the present invention is not limited thereto, and such operations may be defined or configured/instructed to the UE so that the UE may initiate the UL transmission by applying a specific codebook among specific candidate codebook 1 (e.g., a DFT-based codebook), codebook 2 (e.g., a Grassmannian codebook), and codebook 3 (e.g., a householder codebook) under the instruction of the base station regardless of the specific waveform at the time of the UL transmission by the UE.

As a more specific embodiment, candidate codebook 1, which is more suitable when arrangement/spacing between antennas according to a UE antenna configuration are implemented in relatively uniform and/or closely-spaced form, may be defined or configured to the UE in a specific DFT-based codebook (e.g., a dual codebook structure including an LTE-A codebook) using a DFT vector or the like. Further, candidate codebook 2, which is more suitable when the arrangement/spacing between the antennas according to the UE antenna configuration is relatively irregular or widely-spaced, may be defined/configured in a codebook form optimized so as to maximally maintain an intercede vector equal distance, such as the Grassmannian codebook. In addition, candidate codebook 3 may be defined or configured to the UE in a form of a specific hybrid type codebook, for example, the householder codebook as a form made by extracting some code vectors among different codebooks having different attributes and purposes, which include codebook1 and codebook 2 (according to the UE antenna configuration).

As a result, when the UE accesses a specific base station in advance, the UE may be defined or configured to perform capability signaling, through a UE capability signaling, which codebook which is at least one among (the) specific candidate codebooks which may be applied at the time of the UL transmission is implemented or supported. In addition/or, when the number of codebooks which are implemented/supported as such is two or more, the UE may notify the base station which codebook of the two codebooks the UE prefers (may provide subdivided preference information in such a manner of giving weighting). In this case, which codebook is more suitable may be determined based on the implemented antenna configuration characteristic of the corresponding UE and there is an effect that information related with a codebook showing a more advantageous effect in terms of performance of the codebooks implemented/supported as such is provided to the base station.

In addition, based on the information, the base station allows the UE to configure/indicate the codebook to be applied at the time of the UL transmission. In this case, among the codebooks which the UE performs the capability signaling to implement/support, a codebook which is not implemented/supported by the corresponding base station may also exist. In this case, the base station may configure the UE to use only the codebook implemented/supported thereby (regardless of the codebook-to-codebook preference information reported by the UE). Alternatively, even if the base station is also capable of configuring/instructing a plurality of codebooks to the UE (that is, even if all of the codebooks are implemented), the base station may configure/indicate the specific codebook to commonly applied to be cell-specific or UE group-specific by synthetically considering a codebook implementation/support status and/or codebook preference status of the plurality of UEs accessing the corresponding cell (for example, for the purpose of facilitating UL MU-MIMO transmission or the like).

In the method in which the base station configures/instructs the corresponding UE to apply the specific codebook at the time of the UL transmission, a relatively quasi-static configuration method by RRC signaling (and/or MAC CE signaling) or the like is also applicable. As described above, it is possible to dynamically indicate which specific codebook is to be applied to the UE by a relatively more dynamic signaling/indication in conjunction with a specific UL scheduling grant. Such a dynamic indication may be implicitly and/or explicitly indicated (in conjunction with feature field information) via a specific field in the control signaling, such as the corresponding UL grant.

More particularly, as mentioned above, which codebook is to be applied in conjunction with a specific rank may be pre-defined or configured to the UE. For example, when an UL grant scheduling rank 1 UL transmission is transmitted, the UE may be continuously defined or configured to the UE to initiate the UL transmission by applying a specific codebook (e.g., codebook 2) associated therewith. Further, when an UL grant scheduling rank X (for example, X>1) UL transmission is transmitted, the UE may be continuously defined or configured to the UE to initiate the UL transmission by applying a specific codebook (e.g., codebook 1) associated therewith.

Thus, if supported, all subband UL-MIMO precoder(s) is(are) preferably instantaneously provided to the UE within the UL scheduling grant and in this case, a wideband component may be included only once to reduce control channel overhead.

Precoded SRS Based Transmission for UL MIMO

For UL link adaptation (LA), LTE may configure the UE to transmit SRS with different multiple sets of SRS related parameters, where the UE may apply implemented specific precoding/selection on SRS port(s) especially when the configured number of SRS port(s) is smaller than the UE's total transmit (Tx) antenna ports. Compared to Rel-13/14 enhanced (e)FD-MIMO beamformed CSI-RS based operations, precoded/beamformed SRS transmissions for UL LA need to be thoroughly investigated in NR. For convenience of description, there may be three UE types in terms of the UL LA process as follows:

1) Type 1 UE (UL-LA initiated with transmitting precoded SRS(s))

-   -   The UE may be configured with one or more SRS resources and         beamforming indicated by transmit and reception point (TRP) or         TRP transparent beamforming is applied to the SRS transmission         on each SRS resource.     -   Based on measuring UE's transmitted precoded SRS resource(s),         the TRP determines SRS resource indicator (SRI) (in case of         multiple configured SRS resources), MCS and/or a precoder across         the SRS port in the SRI are determined and indicates the SRI,         the MCS, and the precoder to the UE when the UL scheduling grant         is delivered to the UE.

2) Type 2 UE (UL-LA initiated with transmitting non-precoded SRS(s))

-   -   The UE may be configured with one SRS resource and the UE         transmits non-precoded SRS.     -   Based on measuring UE's transmitted non-precoded SRS         resource(s), the TRP determines the MCS and/or the precoder         across the SRS port in the SRI are determined and indicates the         MCS and the precoder to the UE when the UL scheduling grant is         delivered to the UE.

In the case of 4-Tx UE and CP-OFDM, the above dual codebook structure is used for the frequency-selective UL-MIMO precoder.

3) Type 3 UE (UL-LA initiated with transmitting non-precoded SRS(s) and transmission of precoded SRS according to TRP's indication)

-   -   Based on measuring UE's non-precoded SRS K₁ port(s), the TRP         determines coarse beamformer and indicates it to the UE to be         applied on transmitting the following precoded SRS K₂(≤K₁)         ports(s). Then, based on measuring UE's transmitted precoded SRS         port(s), the TRP determines MCS and/or precoder, and indicates         them when UL scheduling grant is delivered to the UE.

Based on the above classified types that may be reported by the UE, different UL-LA processes may be configured to be UE-specific, including which types of SRS transmission is performed by the UE. Regarding precoded SRS transmission cases (e.g., Type 1 and/or Type 3), multiple SRS resources may be configured to UE, where the UE transmits differently-beamformed SRS port(s) on each configured SRS resource. The TRP may indicate such beamformer information to the UE, or the UE is allowed to apply the TRP-transparent beamformer for the SRS transmission. Then, when UL scheduling grant is given to the UE, the TRP may indicate the SRS resource indicator for which the UE should apply the same beamformer used on the SRS transmission corresponding to the indicated SRS resource, for the scheduled UL transmission. Further, on the selected SRS resource, the TRP may further indicate digital precoding information (e.g., UL PMI) over the SRS port(s) within the indicated SRS resource. It should be noted that the configured number of SRS ports for each SRS resource may be interpreted as a target rank in UE's UL transmission. Therefore, the TRP may configure multiple SRS resources, each corresponding to the different rank to cover rank 1 to 4 (e.g., v-port SRS configured for v-th SRS resource (where v=1, 2, 3,)).

Accordingly, procedures related with the non-precoded and/or precoded SRS transmission should be further investigated based on different UE types in terms of the UL link adaptation process.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating a method for transmitting and receiving an uplink according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 13, the operation of the present invention is simply illustrated, and a more detailed description thereof may follow the aforementioned operation.

Referring to FIG. 13, the UE receives downlink control information (DCI) from the base station (S1303).

The DCI may include an SRS Resource Indication (SRI), a precoding indication (e.g., U1 and/or U2, or TPMI) and/or a rank indication (e.g., TRI).

For example, the precoding indication may be divided into a first precoding indication (i.e., U1) having a wideband attribute and a second precoding indication (U2) indicated for each subband. In this case, the second precoding indication U2 may be transmitted while being jointly encoded with uplink resource allocation information scheduled to the UE. That is, the second precoding indication U2 may be configured/indicated together in link with a UL RA field.

The UE transmits an uplink to the base station by applying precoding indicated by the precoding indication on an antenna port of an SRS transmitted in an SRS resource selected by the SRI (S1304).

The number of ranks for the uplink transmission may be explicitly indicated by the DCI or implicitly determined as the number of antenna ports of the SRS transmitted in the SRS resource selected by the SRI in the DCI.

Meanwhile, before step S1303, the UE may receive a downlink reference signal (DL RS) (e.g., CSI-RS, etc.) from the base station (S1301).

Further, the UE may transmit the precoded SRS for each of one or more SRS resources configured for the UE to the base station (S1302).

In this case, the base station may select an SRS resource having the highest reception quality through SRS measurement for each SRS resource and indicate the UE by deriving the precoding indication (for example, U1 and/or U2, or TPMI) with respect to the SRS port(s) in the selected SRS resource.

Further, a beamforming vector and/or beamforming coefficient applied for transmission of the precoded SRS may be configured by the base station through a control channel signaling or arbitrarily determined by the UE.

Further, the beamforming vector and/or beamforming coefficient applied for the precoded SRS transmission in the SRS resource may be determined based on a beamforming vector and/or beamforming coefficient used for reception of the DL RS (e.g., CSI-RS etc.).

More specifically, the UE measures the DL RS transmitted by the base station to find (and also report) a best “serving-beam”. In addition, the UE may determine a paired best “Rx-receiving-beam” thereof for the best “serving-beam”. Further, the UE may transmit the precoded SRS by applying the corresponding beamforming vector/coefficient(s), when transmitting the precoded/beamformed SRS, by reversing (e.g., taking Hermitian) the best “Rx-receiving-beam” by using a DL/UL channel reciprocity characteristic (or a beam pair link). That is, the precoded SRS transmission may be performed with spatial filtering which is the same as spatial filtering used for the reception of a specific DL RS (e.g., the best “serving-beam”).

When the DL-RS is the CSI-RS, the CSI-RS resource used for determining the beamforming vector and/or beamforming coefficient applied for the precoded SRS transmission is indicated by the base station.

In addition, the precoding SRS transmission which the UE performs in the SRS resource may be performed independently for each subband.

For example, for the precoded SRS transmission in the SRS resource, an independent beamforming vector and/or beamforming coefficient may be applied for each subband.

Further, the beamforming vector and/or beamforming coefficient applied for the SRS transmission precoded for each subband in the SRS resource may be determined based on a beamforming vector and/or beamforming coefficient used for reception of the DL RS (e.g., CSI-RS etc.).

More specifically, the UE measures the DL RS transmitted by the base station to find (and also report) the best “serving-beam”. In addition, the UE may determine a paired best “Rx-receiving-beam” thereof for the best “serving-beam”. Further, the UE may transmit the precoded SRS for each subband by applying the corresponding beamforming vector/coefficient(s), when transmitting the precoded/beamformed SRS, by reversing (e.g., taking Hermitian) the best “Rx-receiving-beam” by using a DL/UL channel reciprocity characteristic (or a beam pair link). That is, the precoded SRS transmission may be performed with spatial filtering which is the same as spatial filtering used for the reception of a specific DL RS (e.g., the best “serving-beam”) in a specific subband.

In this case, when the DL-RS is the CSI-RS, the CSI-RS resource used for determining the beamforming vector and/or beamforming coefficient applied for the precoded SRS transmission is indicated by the base station.

The following technologies are discussed for NR UL/DL MIMO.

The following downlink first layer (L1)/second layer (L2) beam management procedure is supported within one or more transmission/reception points (TRPs).

-   -   P-1 is used to enable UE measurements on different TRP Tx beams         to support selection of TRP transmission (Tx) beam(s)/UE         reception (Rx) beam(s).

For beamforming in the TRP, P-1 includes intra-TRP/inter-TRP Tx beam sweeps from a set of different beams.

For the beamforming in the UE, P-1 includes a UE Rx beam sweep from the set of different beams.

The TRP Tx beam and the UE Rx beam may be jointly or sequentially determined.

-   -   P-2 is used to enable UE measurements on different TRP Tx beams         so as to change inter/intra-TRP Tx beam(s).

A set of beams smaller than P-1 may be used for beam refinement as possible.

P-2 may be regarded as a special case of P-1.

-   -   P-3 is used to enable UE measurements on the same TRP Tx beam so         as to change the UE Rx beam when the UE uses the beamforming.

Intra-TRP beam measurement and inter-TRP beam measurement may be performed in the same procedure. The UE may not know whether the TRP Tx beam is the intra-TRP beam or the inter-TRP beam.

The procedures of P-2 and P-3 may be performed jointly and/or multiple times (e.g., the TRP Tx/UE Rx beam may be changed at the same time).

The UE may manage multiple Tx/Rx beam pairs.

Assistance information from another carrier is being discussed in a beam management procedure.

The procedure may be applied to any frequency band. Further, the procedure may be used for single/multiple beam(s) for each TRP.

-   -   Uplink beam management is discussed in new radio (NR) access         technology (RAT).

A procedure similar to downlink beam management may be defined. For example, the procedure is described below.

U-1 is used to enable TRP measurements on different UE Tx beams in order to support selection of the UE Tx beam(s)/TRP Rx beam(s).

This may not necessarily be used in all cases.

-   -   U-2 is used to enable TRP measurements on different TRP Rx beams         so as to change/select the inter/intra-TRP Rx beam(s).

U-3 is used to enable TRP measurements on the same TRP Rx beam so as to change the UE Tx beam when the UE uses the beamforming.

-   -   Information related to Tx/Rx correspondence is supported.     -   The uplink beam management is discussed based on:

Physical random access channel (PRACH)

Sounding reference signal (SRS)

Demodulation reference signal (DM-RS)

Other channels and reference signals are not excluded.

-   -   The uplink beam management procedure is discussed in         consideration of the Tx/Rx beam correspondence:

When the TRP and the UE have the Tx/Rx beam correspondence

When the TRP does not have the Tx/Rx beam correspondence and/or the UE does not have the Tx/Rx beam correspondence

-   -   The CSI-RS supports downlink Tx beam sweeping and UE Rx beam         sweeping.

The CSI-RS may be used in P1, P2, and P3.

-   -   The NR CSI-RS supports the following mapping structure.

N_P CSI-RS port(s) may be mapped for each (sub) time unit.

Throughout the (sub) time unit, the same CSI-RS antenna port may be mapped.

Herein, “time unit” may be represented by N>=1 OFDM symbols within configured/referred numerology.

The OFDM symbols constituting one time unit may or may not be continuous.

A port multiplexing method (e.g., frequency division multiplexing (FDM), time division multiplexing (TDM), code division multiplexing (CDM), or another combination) may be used.

Each time unit may be divided into sub-time units.

The division method may adopt, for example, TDM, interleaved frequency division multiple access (IFDMA), and OFDM symbol-level division to an OFDM symbol length (i.e., a subcarrier spacing greater than the subcarrier spacing) which is equal to or shorter than a reference OFDM symbol length and further, other methods are not excluded.

Such a mapping structure may be used to support multiple panel/Tx chains.

CSI-RS mapping options for Tx and Rx beam sweeping are described below.

Option 1: The Tx beam(s) are the same across the sub-time units within each time unit. The Tx beam(s) are different for each time unit.

Option 2: The Tx beam(s) are different for each sub-time unit within each time unit. The Tx beam(s) are the same across the time unit.

Option 3 (Combination of Option 1 and Option 2): The Tx beam(s) are the same across the sub-time units within each time unit. The Tx beam(s) are different for each sub-time unit within another time unit.

Only Tx sweeping or Rx sweeping may be possible.

Another option is not ruled out.

The mapping scheme described above may or may not be configured as one or multiple CSI-RS resource configurations.

Multiple SRS Resource Types for Beam Management

-   -   A specific SRS resource configured for distinguishing A, B, or C         UL-LA UEs discussed/mentioned above and/or for corresponding         correspondence operations may be classified/distinguished into         “Type 1 SRS resource”. It can be seen (and characterized) that         the specific SRS resource may be configured for achieving fast         link adaptation for UL data scheduling.

A set of one or more ‘SRS port(s)’ may be configured within Type 1 SRS resource.

In this case, for example, a specific analog beam direction is commonly applied to the ‘set of SRS port(s)’ configured in a specific Type 1 SRS resource, but the set of SRS port(s) may be transmitted in a form of “precoded SRS port” so as to apply specific digital beam directions which are different for each SRS port (for example, interpretable as the aforementioned class B UE related operation). Further, an additional digital beam direction is not applied to the ‘set of SRS port(s)’ configured in the specific for each SRS port and the set of SRS port(s) may be transmitted while only the specific analog beam direction which is commonly applied is already applied (for example, interpretable as the aforementioned Class A UE related operation).

-   -   “Type 2 SRS resource” separated/distinguished from “Type 1 SRS         resource” described above may be defined or configured to the         UE. It can be seen (characterized) that the “Type 2 SRS         resource” is configured, for example, to         determine/change/configure/indicate a specific preferred         (analog) (Tx/Rx) beam direction for UL beam management.

In this case, one or more of Type 2 SRS resources may also be configured to the UE. In this case, the UE may inform the base station of a capability of how many (Type 2) SRS resources may be configured simultaneously by UE capability signaling (at the time of initial connection). It is preferable that the base station that receives the capability provides configurations of a number not to violate the capability.

One or more SRS port(s) may be configured in one Type 2 SRS resource. The UE may inform the base station of a capability (e.g., maximum value) of how many SRS ports(s) may be maximally configured per (type 2) SRS resource (and/or for each (Type 2) SRS resource) by the UE capability signaling or the like (at the time of the initial connection). In addition, it is preferable that the base station that receives the capability provides configurations of a number not to violate the capability. And/or the UE may inform the base station of a capability for the total number of SRS ports maximally supported throughout the (all) multiple (Type 2) SRS resources by the UE capability signaling or the like (at the time of the initial connection). It is preferable that the base station that receives the capability provides configurations of a number not to violate the capability. In this case, the capability signaling may be defined or configured to the UE as a form (e.g., a joint encoding form) to independently inform the base station of the total number of SRS ports maximally supported per (Type 2) SRS resource.

Through the UE capability signaling or the like, the UE may determine information related to the number (depending on the number of TXRUs implemented by the UE) of (analog) beams that may be transmitted together at one time for UL beam management operations that may be implemented/supported by the UE (in regard to Type 2 SRS resource). Therefore, there is an advantage/effect in that since a further UL beam management procedure is not operable, the base station determines configurations of appropriate (Type 2) SRS resource(s)/port(s) by considering capability report information of multiple UEs based on a fact that the UL beam management procedure is not operable to provide the determined configurations to the UEs.

Each configured (Type 2) SRS resource is a detailed configuration parameter and the UE may be limited in operation to transmit a set of periodically configured SRS port(s) (e.g., through RRC signaling and/or L2 (e.g., a MAC control element (CE)) signaling and/or L1 (e.g., DCI) signaling). Alternatively, the UE may be limited in operation to transmit a set of SRS port(s) in an “on-demand scheme” when triggered by aperiodically (by L1 signaling (by DCI).

Alternatively, such a periodic (Type 2) SRS resource and an aperiodic (Type 2) SRS resource may be mixed and configured to one UE. This has the advantage of having the highest configuration flexibility. In this case, information indicating whether the advantage is available may be transferred to the base station through specific UE capability signaling or the like in advance. Further, at least one of other SRS sequence generating parameter(s) (SRS sequence generating parameter(s), SRS transmit RE pattern information, comb-type related information, hopping related information, and the like) may be configured for each (Type 2) SRS resource (independently).

For example, when one (Type 2) SRS resource is comprised of a single (OFDM) symbol (e.g., may be comprised of a periodic or aperiodic configuration), the UE may transmit (analog) beams of a number as many as the number of panels or TXRUs of the UE at a corresponding transmission time. In this case, the UE may be configured to repeatedly transmit the SRS in multiple (OFDM) symbols (or specific sub-time units) for receiving beam scanning of the base station.

-   -   Consequently, when a situation in which at least one of the         above proposed contents is applied, for example, the UE may         assume a state in which Type 1 SRS resources #1, #2, and #3 and         Type 2 SRS resources #1, #2, #3, and #4 are configured (that is,         a total of 7 SRS resources are mixedly configured).

In this case, the UE may define whether to transmit the SRS port(s) to which the same analog beam is applied in one SRS resource or the SRS port(s) to which different specific analog beams are applied (associated with which type of SRS resource is configured to the UE) or whether to transmit the SRS port(s) to which the same analog beam is applied in one SRS resource or the SRS port(s) to which different specific analog beams are applied may be indicated (configured) by the base station.

When the UE is defined/configured to transmit the SRS port(s) to which the same specific (analog) beam is applied in one SRS resource, this may correspond to the case where the Type 1 SRS resource (alternatively, the SRS resource may be configured in a form of the “Type 2 SRS resource” or may be a specific SRS resource not classified as a specific type) is configured to the UE. It is characterized in that the UL beam management and a UL CSI acquisition operation which is the “Type 1 SRS” related operation may be simultaneously performed through transmission of the single specific SRS resource (for example, since the same beam is applied to multiple ports, the base station is capable of deriving UL CSI).

On the contrary, when the UE is defined/configured to transmit SRS port(s) to which different specific (analog) beams are applied in one SRS resource, this may correspond to the case where the Type 2 SRS resource is configured to the UE.

Herein, “specific” (analog) beam may be limited to a form in which a specific beam directly indicated by the base station is applied. For example, in the case of the Type 1 SRS resource, the base station may indicate to the UE a specific SRS port index within another specific Type 2 SRS resource. That is, a scheme explicitly indicating to apply the (analog) beam applied to the corresponding SRS port index as it is may be defined or configured to the UE. Alternatively, a scheme may be applied in which the base station directly indicates to the UE with a specific (analog) beam index. In this case, when the UE transmits the SRS on the precoded SRS resource, the SRS (e.g., Type 1 SRS) may be transmitted based on precoding (i.e., a precoder calculated on the corresponding SRS) applied to another SRS (e.g., Type 2 SRS) indicated by the base station.

And/or the “specific” (analog) beam allows the UE to arbitrarily apply a specific beam base station-transparently and as described above, the case of the Type 2 SRS resource may be limited to a fact that “different specific (analog) beams” that cover different regions need to be applied between the SRS ports within the corresponding resource.

Further, herein, in respect to the case where it is defined or configured “so as to transmit the SRS port(s) to which the same specific (analog) beam is applied in the one specific configured SRS resource”, an application condition of such an operation may be further concrete.

For example, the operation of the UE may be defined or configured, which indicates that “the same specific (analog) Tx beam should be applied to multiple SRS ports that are transmitted at least at the same time instance (e.g., the same (OFDM) symbol) in one specific configured SRS resource”. This means that since the operation of the UE may be configured as such at least for a purpose of UL-MIMO link adaptation (CSI acquisition), the operation of the UE is defined or configured to apply the same specific (analog) Tx beam to multiple configured SRS ports in this case. This may be limited only to multiple SRS ports that are transmitted at the same time instance (e.g., the same OFDM symbol) as above (i.e., This may mean that the UE may be allowed/configured to apply another (analog) Tx beam together when specific SRS port(s) configured in the corresponding SRS resource are transmitted at different time instances. Further, whether such an operation is allowed itself may follow a base station configuration.).

The UL-MIMO related operation may be variously applied/utilized by singly defining only such definition/configuration(s). That is, the reason is that when it is desired to configure the SRS resource (or the SRS port(s)) for UL beam management purposes as the same purpose as the Type 2 SRS resource, for example, a scheme in which multiple SRS resources in which a single port (or a small number of ports) is configured are configured may be applied (that is, since the UE may apply different (analog) Tx beams between the SRS resources, a beam management operation may be implemented through the application of the different (analog) Tx beams).

Therefore, the present invention proposes the following operations.

In NR UL, the SRS supports UE Tx beam sweeping and/or TRP Rx beam sweeping.

-   -   The UE may be configured as UE Tx beams different for each port         per SRS resource (for example, for U-2). Further, the UE may be         configured as the same UE Tx beam across ports per SRS resource         (for example, for U-3).     -   gNB may indicate the SRS port/resource selected for the UE.

Further, the present invention proposes the following operations.

For uplink CSI acquisition, multiple SRS resources may be configured in the UE.

-   -   The UE may be configured to transmit the SRS port in the         configured SRS resource. Herein, at least two following options         may be used.

Option 1: The UE applies a gNB-transparent precoder (for example, the UE determines the Tx beam at each SRS port).

Option 2: The UE applies the precoder according to a gNB indication (for example, the Tx beam for each SRS port is indicated by the gNB).

-   -   The gNB may indicate the selected SRS resource for the UE to         transmit uplink data on the same antenna port of the indicated         SRS resource.

A PMI (if indicated in the scheduling grant) for data transmission may also be applied across the antenna port.

Further, the present invention proposes the following operations.

For the uplink CSI acquisition, multiple SRS resources may be configured in the UE.

-   -   The UE may be configured to transmit the SRS port in the         configured SRS resource. Herein, at least one of the following         alternatives may be used.

Alternative 1: The UE applies the gNB-transparent precoder (for example, the UE determines the Tx beam at each SRS port).

Alternative 2: The UE applies the precoder according to the gNB indication (for example, the Tx beam for each SRS port is indicated by the gNB).

Alternative 3: Combination of Alternative 1 and Alternative 2 (e.g., the gNB indicates a set of precoders and the UE determines a subset of precoders).

-   -   The gNB may indicate the selected SRS resource for the UE to         transmit uplink data on the same antenna port of the indicated         SRS resource.

A PMI (if indicated in the scheduling grant) for data transmission may also be applied across the antenna port.

-   -   As described above, the UE may perform periodic SRS transmission         when the periodic type of the SRS resource is configured. For         periodic SRS transmission, the UE may be configured up to N SRS         resources. Further, the UE may be configured to transmit the N         SRS resources alternately at each transmission instance         corresponding to each transmission period or to defined or         configured to transmit the SRS by dividing the N SRS resources         based on the corresponding pattern by being configured a         specific pattern in advance (or separately).     -   Further, as described above, the UE may perform the aperiodic         SRS transmission when the aperiodic type of the SRS resource is         configured. For the aperiodic SRS transmission, the UE may be         designated to transmit the SRS of which SRS resource (e.g., an         SRS resource index or identifier (ID)) in the DCI triggering the         SRS transmission (i.e., may be explicitly indicated).     -   The operation of the UE may be defined/configured so that the UE         transmits the PUSCH by (by default) applying the (analog) beam         applied to which SRS port (index) (in the corresponding SRS         resource) of which (Type 2) SRS resource (and/or by applying         such (digital) beamforming together when there is additionally         indicated PMI related information) when the PUSCH scheduling.

As a result, as described above, even when the base station configures/indicate for the UE to transmit the SRS on the SRS port for the (Type 1) SRS resource, the base station may explicitly indicate for the UE to transmit the SRS by applying the (analog) beam applied to which (Type 2) SRS resource (or applied to which SRS port (index) (group) (in the corresponding SRS resource) as (analog) beam information to be applied (by default) when transmitting the SRS on the corresponding SRS port.

In other words, the base station may indicate to the UE (analog) beam information (that is, precoder/beamformer) used at the time of transmitting the SRS on the SRS resource (e.g., Type 2 SRS resource) transmitted before the target SRS, when the base station indicates to the UE (analog) beam information (that is, precoder/beamformer) to be applied at the time of transmitting the target SRS on the target SRS resource (e.g., Type 1 SRS resource). That is, as linkage configuration information between the target SRS and the previously transmitted SRS, the base station may indicate to the UE the SRS resource information that is transmitted before the target SRS (for example, using the SRI or the like).

Further, in more detail, specific SRS port (or SRS port group) information for the SRS resource (e.g., Type 2 SRS resource) that is transmitted before the target SRS may be indicated to the UE as the (analog) beam information (that is, precoder/beamformer) to be applied at the time of transmitting the target SRS. That is, as linkage configuration information between the target SRS and the previously transmitted SRS, the base station may indicate to the UE the specific SRS port (or SRS port group) information in the SRS resource that is transmitted before the target SRS. Further, the base station may explicitly indicate that the UE transmits the PUSCH by applying the (analog) beam applied to which SRS port (index) (group) (in the corresponding SRS resource) of which (Type 2) SRS resource (and/or by applying such (digital) beamforming together when there is additionally indicated PMI related information) at the time of the PUSCH scheduling as (analog) beam information to be applied (by default) at the time of transmitting the corresponding PUSCH, even when configuring/indicating that the UE transmits UL data (that is, PUSCH) SRS on the corresponding SRS port.

Further, the base station may explicitly indicate that the UE transmits the PUSCH by applying the (analog) beam applied to which (Type 1) SRS resource transmission (and/or by applying such (digital) beamforming together when there is additionally indicated PMI related information) at the time of the PUSCH scheduling as (analog) beam information to be applied (by default) at the time of transmitting the corresponding PUSCH, when configuring/indicating that the UE transmits UL data (that is, PUSCH) SRS on the corresponding SRS port. That is, by indicating the Type 1 SRS resource, it is possible to instruct to transmit the UL data in a scheme of linking the specific Type 2 SRS resource/ports that is already applied thereto.

In such a specific explicit indication, a control message may be transferred to the UE by L1 signaling (e.g., by the DCI) and/or L2 signaling (e.g., by MAC CE). Further, as described above, control information may be transferred to the UE in a form of paired information of a specific form such as (“SRS resource index/ID (with specific type indication)” and “port index in indicated SRS resource or port-selection-codebook-index”). In this case, in order to comply with the scheme indicated in the specific form of “port-selection-codebook-index”, a specific selection codebook for complying with the scheme may be defined in advance or configured to the UE and in the specific selection codebook, a specific codebook index may be indicated. For example, the size of each code-vector is equal to the number of ports in the corresponding SRS resource, and each code-vector may be defined or configured in a structure in which only one specific element is 1 and all other elements are zero.

In the operations, indication information to perform transmission by applying the specific (analog) beam applied to the specific (Type 2) SRS resource (or SRS port/port group) transmission indicated in the linkage form as it is may be defined/configured as a form to apply the corresponding “latest specific (analog) beam applied to the “specific (Type 2) SRS resource (or SRS port/port group) transmission” with respect to the time (e.g., transmitted in an nth (#n) time index) of receiving the corresponding indication information and/or the previous time. Alternatively, a specific time point is specified, and as a result, the indication information may be defined or configured, for example, in the form to apply the (analog) beam applied to the latest (e.g., in specific Nth transmission before the latest transmission) with respect to #n−k (e.g., may be set in advance/independently of candidate values such as k=0, 1, 2, . . . ) time and/or the previous time.

The following technologies are discussed in association with NR UL/DL MIMO.

At least one of the precoded SRS and the non-precoded SRS based on the UL link adaptation procedure is supported in NR at least using the following different procedures.

-   -   The uplink data scheduling (MCS/precoder/rank) is based on         non-precoded SRS transmission by the UE.

The number of configurable SRS ports is 1, 2, 4, or 8.

-   -   The uplink data scheduling (MCS/precoder/rank) is based on         precoded SRS transmission by the UE.

The number of configurable SRS ports is 1, 2, or 4.

(If supported) multiple precoded SRS resources may be configured.

The precoder for the SRS may be determined by the UE based on the measurement of the DL RS. Alternatively, the precoder for the SRS may be indicated by the gNB.

-   -   The uplink data scheduling (MCS/precoder/rank) is based on the         combination of the non-precoded and precoded SRS transmissions         by the UE.

Some of the procedures described above may be transparent to the UE.

-   -   For the purpose of the discussion, the classification         ‘closed-loop’/‘closes-loop’ is replaced with method-based         classification of ‘precoding and ‘precoder cycling’.

Signaling and UL-CSI measurements are supported to be processed separately.

Precoding and precoder cycling may be considered for UL DMRS-based spatial multiplexing (SM).

For a CP-OFDM waveform, a space frequency block code (SFBC) may be covered by a standard specification.

-   -   When the transmission port is greater than a predetermined X,         frequency selective precoding is supported for UL MIMO with the         CP-OFDM waveform.

The following example may be discussed.

Example 1

Precoding information for a given partial bandwidth (BW) is explicitly indicated by the gNB.

The precoding information may be indicated through a hierarchical indication as wideband W1 and subband W2.

W1 and W2 may be signaled with one DCI or two individual DCIs.

Example 2

A single beam group in the UL codebook is indicated by the base station (BS) for UL transmission in terms of the system bandwidth.

Example 2a

Precoder cycling is employed within the beam group.

Example 2b

The UE has specific flexibility in determining which specific beam/precoder in the beam group for actual transmission.

Example 3

Reciprocity based precoding

-   -   The NR-SRS resource is comprised of a set of resource elements         (REs) and N antenna ports (N≥1) within a time duration/frequency         span.

The UE may be configured with K (K≥1) NR-SRS resources.

The maximum value of K may be determined in consideration of the UE capability.

Hereinafter, based on the above discussion, UL-MIMO and precoded SRS-based transmission with the frequency selective precoding will be described.

1) Frequency Selective Precoding

In order to apply frequency selective precoding for UL-MIMO in NR, control channel overhead which increases due to indicating subband PMI(s) may be a serious problem. Although it may be considered to signal multiple PMIs separately from the UL-related DCI and to include a pointer field in the DCI for indicating such signaling, this kind of two-step approach may not be desired due to latency for providing the full information of subband-wise multiple PMIs as a first step. In other words, a motivation of introducing such frequency selective UL precoder is to achieve fast UL link adaptation exploiting the frequency domain as well, so that the full set of precoder information is desired to be delivered instantaneously to the UE when the set of precoder information is scheduled for the UL transmission. Thus, to support the frequency selective UL-MIMO precoding identified in the above discussion, the following options are proposed.

-   -   The precoding information may be indicated through a         hierarchical indication method by using the wideband W1 and the         subband W2.     -   W1 and W2 may be signaled within one DCI.

More specifically, in order to solve a control channel overhead issue for frequency selective UL-MIMO scheduling, it is necessary to consider applying a dual codebook structure to the UL case similar to DL (for example, 4 transmission (Tx) case). The UL precoder W for each final subband may be decomposed into the wideband PMI element W_1 and the corresponding subband PMI element W_2. In addition, in the UL scheduling DCI, it is sufficient that W_1 information is included once and it is required that multiple W_2 are included according to the scheduled resource block (RB) given by the resource allocation field in the same DCI. Although further discussion is needed as to how to define the codebook for W_1 and W_2, it may be essential to re-use the release (Rel)-12 DL 4-Tx codebook. The existing LTE 2-Tx DL codebook may be reused for the 2-Tx UL case and the whole per-subband PMIs need to be provided in the UL scheduling grant.

Accordingly, the full subband UL-MIMO precoder needs to be provided to the UE in the UL scheduling grant and the wideband element may be included once to reduce control channel overhead.

2) Precoded SRS Based Transmission

For UL link adaptation (LA), LTE may support the UE to transmit the SRS with different multiple sets of SRS related parameters, where the UE may adopt precoding/selection on the SRS port(s) according to the implementation of the UE especially when the configured number of SRS port(s) is smaller than the UE's total transmit (Tx) antenna ports. Compared to Rel-13/14, enhanced full-dimension MIMO ((e)FD-MIMO) beamformed CSI-RS based operations, precoded/beamformed SRS transmissions for UL LA need to be thoroughly investigated in NR. Similar to two types of DL CSI-RS resources (i.e., Type 1 for MIMO CSI feedback and Type 2 for DL beam management), two different types of SRS resources need to be defined. That is, type 1 SRS resources for UL LA and SRS resources for UL beam management.

Thus, for purposes of different operations, it is desirable that two different types of SRS resources are defined in NR. That is, type 1 for UL LA and type 2 for UL beam management.

In particular, for Type 1 SRS resources for UL LA, three classes of operations may be defined in terms of the UL LA process as follows.

-   -   Class A (UL-LA based on non-precoded SRS transmission)

The UE may be configured with one Type 1 SRS resource for the UE to transmit the non-precoded SRS.

Based on measuring UE's transmitted non-precoded SRS resource(s), the TRP determines the MCS and/or the precoder across the SRS port(s) and indicates the MCS and/or the precoder when the UL scheduling is delivered to the UE.

In the case of 4-Tx UE and CP-OFDM, the above dual codebook structure is used for the frequency-selective UL-MIMO precoder.

-   -   Class B (UL-LA based on precoded SRS(s) transmission)

One or more type 1 SRS resources may be configured in the UE. TRP-indicated beamforming or TRP-transparent beamforming is applied for the SRS transmission on each SRS resource.

-   -   Based on measuring UE's transmitted precoded SRS resource(s),         the TRP determines SRS resource indicator (SRI) in case of         multiple configured SRS resources, MCS, and/or precoder across         the SRS ports within the SRI, and indicates the SRI, the MCS,         and/or the precoder when UL scheduling grant is delivered to the         UE.     -   Class C (UL-LA initiated with transmitting a non-precoded SRS,         and after that, transmitting a precoded SRS according to TRP's         indication)

Based on UE's transmitted non-precoded SRS K_1 port(s), the TRP determines coarse beamformer and indicates the determined coarse beamformer to the UE to be applied on transmitting the following precoded SRS K_2 (≤K1) ports(s). Then, based on UE's transmitted precoded SRS port(s), the TRP determines MCS and/or precoder, and indicates the MCS and/or the precoder when UL scheduling grant is delivered to the UE.

Based on the above classified classes for which the capability may be reported by UE, different UL-LA process may be configured UE-specifically, including which classes of SRS transmission is performed by the UE (e.g., Class B and/or Class C) and multiple type 1 SRS resources may be configured to UE, where the UE transmits differently-beamformed SRS port(s) on each configured SRS resource. The TRP may indicate such beamformer information to the UE, or the UE is allowed to apply the TRP-transparent beamformer for the SRS transmission. Then, when UL scheduling grant is given to the UE, the TRP may indicate the SRS resource indicator for which the UE should apply the same beamformer used on the SRS transmission corresponding to the indicated SRS resource, for the scheduled UL transmission. Further, on the selected SRS resource, the TRP may further indicate digital precoding information (e.g., UL PMI) over the SRS port(s) in the indicated SRS resource. The configured number of SRS ports for each SRS resource may be interpreted as a target rank in UE's UL transmission. Therefore, the TRP may configure multiple type 1 SRS resources, each corresponding to the different rank (e.g., v-port SRS configured for v-th type 1 SRS resource, where v=1, 2, 3, 4, to cover rank 1 to 4).

Accordingly, procedures related with the non-precoded and/or precoded SRS transmission needs to be further discussed based on different UE types in terms of the UL link adaptation process.

When Type 2 SRS resources for UL beam management are configured in the UE and multiple SRS ports are configured in the resource, different analog beams need to be applied to the configured SRS ports to support UL beam management. For example, when it is assumed that each SRS transmission instance includes a single OFDM symbol for a configured Type 2 SRS resource with P SRS ports, the UE needs to apply P different analog beam directions to different SRS ports, respectively and simultaneously transmits the SRSs every SRS transmission instance. In this example, the UE may be implemented with P TXRUs/Panels, and thus, the value of P or related information needs to be initially delivered to the gNB as a UE capability signaling such that appropriate configurations may be applied on appropriate type 2 SRS resource(s) for UL beam management.

After measuring transmitted SRS ports in Type 2 SRS resource, gNB may select preferred analog beam(s) to be used for applying to Type 1 SRS resource(s) or directly applying to some UL data transmissions to be scheduled.

As a result, NR should support mechanisms on UL beam management to indicate preferred beam(s) selected by gNB after measuring transmitted SRS ports in Type 2 SRS resource, to be applied on Type 1 SRS resource(s) or UL data transmissions to be scheduled.

The UL-MIMO scheduling by the DCI may include at least one of the followings.

SRS Resource Indicator (SRI)

In this case, this field may exist only when multiple SRS resources are configured to UE. As a result, the field may be defined to selectively exist so that the corresponding SRI field may be configured only in such a specific condition (for example, when two or more (Type 1) SRS resources are configured, etc.).

Alternatively, the gNB may explicitly configure the existence of the corresponding SRI field through the higher layer signal (e.g., RRC signaling).

The bit width of the SRI field may be determined automatically (i.e., implicitly) by ceil{log 2(N)} bits, assuming that the total number of SRS resources (Type 1) SRS resources configured to the corresponding UE is N or determined by the configuration of the base station. Herein, ceil{x} means a function that outputs the smallest integer not smaller than x.

Transmit Rank Indicator (TRI)

As the value of the field, up to the number of SRS ports configured in the indicated SRI in the same DCI is available.

Transmit PMI (TPMI)

The precoding matrix (PM) depends on the number of SRS ports configured in the indicated SRI in the same DCI.

This field may exist only when a codebook-based UL-MIMO scheme is configured to the UE. As a result, the field may be defined to selectively exist so that the corresponding TPMI field may be configured only in such a specific condition (for example, in the case of the codebook-based UL-MIMO mode/operation, etc.). Alternatively, the gNB may explicitly configure the existence of the corresponding TPMI field through the higher layer signal (e.g., RRC signaling).

Further, even for non-codebook-based UL-MIMO cases, a selection codebook may be used for the TPMI field.

-   -   UL MCS indication     -   UL Resource allocation

1) Operation for Codebook (CB) Based UL

Method 1) In the case of codebook-based UL, only one SRS resource set may be configured.

-   -   One SRS resource is selected in the set via the SRI field in the         UL grant.     -   The SRI field in the UL grant is encoded at least independently         of the TPMI in the same UL grant.

The bit width of the SRI field is determined as N=ceil(log 2(number of SRS resources in the set)).

As such, the SRI field may be designed in such a manner that the indicated target of the SRI field that may be indicated (by UL grant) in the PUSCH scheduling is defined only to the SRS resource(s) in the specific SRS resource set. That is, the SRI field may be the SRS resource set in which only Type A SRS resources (for CSI acquisition/link adaptation) are configured.

-   -   The SRS resource set may also be reused in UL beam management         (BM). Alternatively, separate SRS resource sets for the UL BM         may be configured to the UE.

For example, in the case of SRS resource set #1 in which the Type A SRS resources are configured, it is assumed that SRS resource set #2 (for example, set #2 configured by grouping Type B SRS resources) separately configured for the purpose of the UL BM or the like is separately configured. In this case, in order to determine the SRI field size (length) as N=ceil(log 2(number of SRS resources in the set)), the UE needs to clearly know for which SRS resource set to set only resources belonging to the corresponding SRS resource set as a calculation target.

Thus, to this end, a separate indicator to indicate for which “set” to calculating the N value may be configured or indicated from the base station.

Further, for which “set” to calculate the N value may be implicitly determined by a specific (predetermined) rule/definition. For example, if the configured lowest SRS resource set (set #1 in the example above) is a target for calculating/applying the N value and the resulting generated 2 {circumflex over ( )}N state description (e.g., each state is a state in which one of all configured CSI-RS resources is selected).

Method 2): The gNB may configure the N bit SRI state description for the UL grant by the RRC. Herein, regardless of whether the state description is configured in the same or different SRS resource sets, each state description may include an SRS resource identifier(s).

Method 3) In the case of the codebook-based UL, multiple SRS resource sets may be configured in the UE.

-   -   Only one SRS resource may be configured in each SRS resource         set.     -   Only one SRS resource (in the set) may be selected via the SRI         field in the UL grant.     -   The SRI field in the UL grant may be encoded at least         independently of the TPMI in the same UL grant.

The bit width of the SRI field is determined as “N=ceil(log 2(number of SRS resources))”.

Similar to the case of Method labove, the UE is clearly aware that the Type A SRS resources are gathered together to constitute the “number of SRS resource sets containing only one SRS resource”, while the SRI field size may be determined as “N=ceil(log 2(number of SRS resources))”.

Another separate SRS resource set(s) for the UL BM may be configured to the UE.

2) Operation for Non-Codebook (Non-CB) Based UL

Method 1)

One SRS resource set may be configured in the UE.

Each SRI state may correspond to a predetermined combination of SRS resources configured in the SRS resource set for the non-CB based UL.

The bit width of the SRS field in the UL grant may be determined as “ceil(log 2(S_tot))”. Herein, S_tot may be defined as Equation 20 below.

$\begin{matrix} {S_{tot} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{L_{\max}}\;\begin{pmatrix} N \\ k \end{pmatrix}}} & \left\lbrack {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 20} \right\rbrack \end{matrix}$ Herein, ceil{x} represents a function that outputs the smallest integer not smaller than x. N represents the number of SRS resources in the SRS resource set and S_tot represents the number of possible combinations among the SRS resources in the SRS resource set. L_max represents the maximum number of layers supported for the non-CB based uplink transmission.

Another separate SRS resource set(s) for the UL BM may be configured to the UE.

For example, in the case of SRS resource set #1 in which the Type A SRS resources are configured, it is assumed that SRS resource set #2 (for example, set #2 configured by grouping Type B SRS resources) separately configured for the purpose of the UL BM or the like is separately configured. In this case, in order to determine the SRI field size (length) as N=ceil(log 2(S_tot)), the UE needs to clearly know for which SRS resource set to set only resources belonging to the corresponding SRS resource set as a calculation target.

Thus, to this end, a separate indicator to indicate for which “set” to calculate the N value may be configured or indicated from the base station.

Further, for which “set” to calculate the N value may be implicitly determined by a specific (predetermined) rule/definition. For example, if the configured lowest SRS resource set (set #1 in the example above) is a target for calculating/applying the N value and the resulting generated 2 {circumflex over ( )}N state description (e.g., each state is a state in which one of all configured CSI-RS resources is selected).

Method 2): The gNB may configure the N bit SRI state description for the UL grant by the RRC. Herein, each state description may include the SRS resource identifier(s) (up to the maximum L_max identifiers (IDs)) in the set.

The CB-based UL mode and the non-CB-based UL mode themselves described above may be configured/switched by the higher layer. Therefore, when the “lowest set” is determined, if the current CB-based UL is available, the lowest set may operate to be the Type A target set and if the current non-CB-based UL is available, the corresponding lowest set may operate to be the Type A target set. In this case, the lowest is just an example and may correspond to ‘highest’ or specific ‘predefined/determined indexed’ set.

The following UL-MIMO CSI acquisition class may be defined.

-   -   Class A (Non-precoded)

The UE may be configured with one SRS resource with M(>1) ports, which is non-precoded.

The UL scheduling grant may include at least TRI, TPMI, and MCS indication.

-   -   Class B (Beamformed)

The UE may be configured with k(>1) SRS resources having M_k(>1) ports, respectively, which is beamformed.

The UL scheduling grant may include at least SRI, TRI, (TPMI), and MCS indication.

-   -   Class C (hybrid)

The UE may be configured with either {first class A+second class B} or {first Class B+second Class B}.

As described above, in the latter case {first class B+second class B}, the first class B may be configured, for example, among the Type 2 SRS resources. In this case, the first class B may be limited to be configured only in the Type 2 SRS resource.

For example, if four resources of K=4 are configured in the first class B, the base station may receive the SRS transmission and select the specific optimal resource(s), and then indicate to apply the selected resource(s) to coefficients beamformed to the SRS resource(s) of the second class B. This corresponds to “indication of TX beam(s) captured from the first class A/B to be applied to the second class B” to be described below. When such an indication is provided, the UE may apply the Tx beam applied with respect to a single instance corresponding the latest instance among instances prior to T time instance (e.g.,T>=0) from the time when the indication is received as the corresponding Tx beam(s).

Such indication may be delivered by L2 (e.g., MAC CE) or by an aperiodic SRS trigger (e.g., DCI) for the second class B. The indication by the MAC CE means notifying to which specific (second class B) SRS resource to apply the TX beam(s) (and/or a specific codebook beam vector applied between the corresponding ports) applied to any specific SRS resource through the corresponding message by scheduling a data header part in which the MAC CE may be transmitted (for example, by specific (DL related) DCI). Alternatively, the base station may notify the information together through the aperiodic SRS triggering DCI for the second class B.

The UL scheduling grant may include at least SRI, TRI, (TPMI), and MCS indication.

Hereinafter, a more detailed operation of a hybrid (i.e., Class C) will be described.

If a form of {first class A+second class B} is configured, the “indication of Tx beam(s) captured from the first class A/B to be applied to the second class B” may be an indication in a specific TPMI form. In this case, a dimension of the TPMI may be defined or configured in a form that a specific value is indicated in a precoding matrix (PM) index having a dimension of a form (here, indicating a dimension of a matrix of the number of rows by the number of columns) of {the number of ports in the SRS resource corresponding to the first class A} by {the number of ports in the specific SRS resource of the applicable second class B}.

At this time, if the UE already receives how many the number of ports per each resource is included in the SRS resource (s) corresponding to the second class B and the like, the dimension of the matrix corresponding to the several-by-several may be determined automatically. Thus, if the above-mentioned indication is provided in the form of a specific PM index value, the UE can apply the corresponding value among the PM candidate groups corresponding to the determined several-by-several. As a result, when the PM is generally defined in a form of the number of ports-by-the number of layers, the information indication of the TPMI type may also be interpreted as the fact that information of applying Tx beam(s) is provided by considering as many layers (or ranks) as the number of ports configured in the corresponding SRS resource of the second class B.

In addition, while the information of the number of ports in the corresponding SRS resource of the specific second class B to be applied may be omitted from the upper layer (e.g., RRC) configuration parameter or defined to be ignored even if it exists, information of a specific TRI type may also be provided to the UE together with the TPMI as the indication information. In this case, as described above, the number of SRS ports corresponding to the TRI value indicated at this time may be defined or configured in a form that varies in association with the indication information of the configuration of the number of SRS ports in the form of being configured in association with the corresponding SRS resource of the specific second class B. As such, considering that the number of ports in the SRS resource of the second class B can be variable, a location of the SRS transmission resources varying according to the determined number of ports may be defined or configured in advance so that the allocation of the SRS transmission resource may be variable.

The above description is not limited to only the operation of the class B, but may be applied to all methods (operations) of applying the specific Tx beam(s) information described in the present invention to the specific beamformed/precoded SRS resource.

Next, if a form of {first class A+second class B} is configured, the “indication of Tx beam(s) captured from the first class A/B to be applied to the second class B” may be an indication in a specific SRI form (and/or SRI and specific port(s) of the corresponding SRI). In this case, it may be regarded as a form that indicates to apply the Tx beam(s) applied to the corresponding SRI and/or port index(s) to the corresponding SRS resource of the corresponding specific second class B. If such an indication is defined or configured in a form of indicating a specific SRI and the number of ports in the corresponding SRI and the number of ports configured in the corresponding SRS resource of the specific second class B are the same as each other, the indication may be defined or configured so that the same Tx beam is applied for each port. If the numbers of the ports are different from each other, at least one of the following several options may be applied with respect to how to be processed:

-   -   The UE can assume that the same Tx beam applied to the indicated         SRI in the indicated first class B is applied to all the ports         in the SRI and can apply the assumption to the second class B.     -   The UE may assume that a different Tx beam is applied for each         port in the indicated SRI in the indicated first class B. In         addition, among them, the UE may arbitrarily select the Tx beam         and apply the selected Tx beam to the corresponding SRS resource         of the second class B. This indicates that the indication to the         SRI for the first class B is to inform the Tx beam groups as         many as the number of ports, and in this case, the UE supports         the operation to be selected and applied gNB-transparently and         by itself.

As another method, in a state in which the information on the number of ports in the corresponding SRS resource of the specific second class B to be applied is omitted from the upper layer (e.g., RRC) configuration parameter or defined to be ignored even if it exists, when the specific SRI is indicated as the indication information, it may be regarded that the number of SRS ports in the SRI indicated at that time is as many as the number of SRS ports in the corresponding to SRS resource of the specific second class B. That is, the configuration of the number of SRS ports may be defined or configured in a variable form by interlocking with the indication information. As such, considering that the number of ports in the SRS resource of the second class B can be variable, a location of the SRS transmission resources varying according to the determined number of ports may be defined in advance or configured so that the allocation of the SRS transmission resource may be variable. Alternatively, if the SRI is indicated, a period (e.g., 50 ms) in which the corresponding SRI is transmitted in the first class B is precisely changed to a predetermined period (e.g., 10 ms) with respect to the corresponding SRS resource of the second class B, and the SRS transmission resource location may be applied to be transmitted to the same transmission resource location of the corresponding SRI in the first class B. Until a next-changed SRI indication is received from a moment when it is transmitted in a long-term (e.g., 50 ms) and then indicated to the SRI before being selected as SRI among the SRS resources in the first class B, this may be applied as an operation (e.g., 10 ms set for the second class B) that varies the SRS transmission period corresponding to the indicated SRI. That is, even in the case of semi-persistent and/or aperiodic SRS, the periodic/aperiodic transmission type may be over-ridden to the periodic/aperiodic transmission type configured in the second class B. This description is not limited to the class B operation, but can be applied to all the operations (methods) of applying the specific Tx beam(s) information described in the present invention to the specific beamformed/precoded SRS resource.

-   -   UL-MIMO scheduling by DCI may include at least one of the         followings:

i) Indication (SRI) of the SRS resource that has been transmitted by the UE at the previous time instance

Each configured SRS resource is associated with at least one UL Tx beam/precoder.

This field may also exist only when multiple SRS resources are configured to the UE.

ii) Transmission rank indicator (TRI)

The value of this field can be up to the number of SRS ports set in the indicated SRI.

iii) Broadband transmission PMI (TPMI)

The precoding matrix PM depends on the number of SRS ports configured in the indicated SRI.

This field may not be present for non-codebook UL MIMO transmission.

iv) UL MCS indication

-   -   Method 1 and Method 2 may be supported as follows when the

Tx beamformer for SRS is determined.

i) Method 1: The UE applies a Tx beamformer to the SRS in a gNB transparent manner (e.g., the UE determines the Tx beam for each SRS port/resource).

i) Method 2: Determined based on gNB indication (via SRI).

Transmission for codebook based UL will be described.

-   -   The codebook-based UL transmission includes at least the         following signaling in the UL grant:

i) SRI+TPMI+TRI

Here, TPMNI is used to indicate a preferred precoder over the SRS port(s) in the SRS resource selected by the SRI.

ii) If a single SRS resource is configured, there is no SRI.

iii) In the case of a multi-panel, a set of {SRI+TPMI+TRI} may be supported for each panel.

Additional precoding indications (e.g., co-phasing over multiple SRS resources) and the like may be considered over the multiple SRS resources.

iv) Selection in the multiple SRS resources may be indicated to support frequency selective precoding. For example, each of indicated SRI 1, SRI 2, SRI 3, . . . may be limited to be applied only to specific (predefined or configurable) frequency granularities (e.g., groups of PRB and the like). As a result, frequency selective precoding in a frequency domain can be applied by multiple SRIs.

-   -   SRI signaling for SRS Tx beam determination

For application to the SRS Tx beam for SRS resources for UL CSI acquisition, the SRI is selected from the SRS resources for the configured UL beam management.

The SRI may be indicated as DCI or MAC CE.

At this time, the SRS port index may be indicated together with the SRI.

Here, the SRI is different from the SRI included in the UL grant.

-   -   Non-codebook based UL transmission for UL supports at least the         following signaling in UL grant.

i) SRI without TPMI/TPI

The rank is equal to the sum of the set number of SRS port(s) over one or more SRS resource(s) selected by the SRI.

For data transmission, the UE applies the same precoder(s) as the precoder(s) used in the SRS port(s) indicated by the SRI to a PUSCH port(s).

The selection of multiple SRS resources may be additionally instructed to support frequency selective precoding.

ii) If a single SRS resource is configured, there is no SRI.

-   -   Non-periodic SRS triggering field in UL related DCI

i)N-bit field

The first codepoint corresponds to ‘SRS transmission is not triggered’.

The n-th codepoint selects at least one of the configured SRS resources. Thus, one or more SRS resource(s) may be jointly encoded for each state in each SRI field. At this time, each state or codepoint is described in advance in the RRC/MAC CE, and the corresponding state may be indicated dynamically.

ii) This field is an independent SRI field.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an uplink transmission/reception method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 14, the UE receives uplink reference signal (e.g., SRS) resource configuration information from a base station (S1401).

The uplink reference signal (e.g., SRS) resource configuration information is used to configure the transmission of the uplink reference signal, and the configuration includes uplink reference signal resource set(s) information and uplink reference signal resource(s) information in each uplink reference signal resource set. In particular, the uplink reference signal resource configuration information may include a linkage configuration (that is, linkage information) between an uplink reference signal, which is a target of the corresponding uplink reference signal resource configuration information, and an uplink reference signal (e.g., SRS)/downlink reference signal (e.g., CSI-RS) transmitted before the corresponding uplink reference signal.

Here, the linkage configuration means indication information which performs (e.g., application of the same precoder/beamformer) transmission of a target uplink reference signal (e.g., SRS) based on a precoder/beamformer that has been applied to the specific uplink reference signal/downlink reference signal resource/port transmission. Although only the uplink reference signal is illustrated in FIG. 14, the present invention is not limited thereto.

At this time, as the linkage configuration information between the target uplink reference signal (the second uplink reference signal in FIG. 14) and the uplink reference signal (the first uplink reference signal in FIG. 14)/downlink reference signal which has been transmitted before the corresponding uplink reference signal, the uplink reference signal/downlink reference signal resource information which has been transmitted before the target uplink reference signal may be indicated to the UE (e.g., using SRI and the like).

In addition, as the linkage configuration information between the target uplink reference signal (the second uplink reference signal in FIG. 14) and the uplink reference signal (the first uplink reference signal in FIG. 14)/downlink reference signal which has been transmitted before the corresponding uplink reference signal, the base station may also indicate specific antenna port (alternatively, antenna port group) information to the UE.

In this case, the specific uplink reference signal (the first uplink reference signal in FIG. 14) may correspond to the most recently transmitted uplink reference signal before the transmission of the target uplink reference signal (the second uplink reference signal in FIG. 14).

The UE transmits the precoded first uplink reference signal to the base station (S1402).

The UE transmits the precoded second uplink reference signal to the base station on the uplink reference signal resource indicated by the uplink reference signal resource information in step S1401 (S1403).

That is, the UE may be configured with one or more uplink reference signal resource sets, and one or more uplink reference signal resources in the set may also be configured. Therefore, in step S1401, the uplink reference signal resource configuration information may be indicated not only for each first uplink reference signal but also for the second uplink reference signal. However, for convenience of description, in the present embodiment, it is described that the uplink reference signal resource configuration information in step S1401 is assumed as information on the second uplink reference signal (i.e., the second uplink reference signal is a target reference signal).

At this time, the UE may transmit the second uplink reference signal based on the precoding (i.e., precoder/beamformer) applied to the first uplink reference signal indicated by the linkage configuration information. For example, the precoding applied to the first uplink reference signal can be equally applied at the time of transmitting the second uplink reference signal.

As described above, the UE may be configured one or more uplink reference signal resource sets, and one or more uplink reference signal resources in the set may also be configured. At this time, the base station may configure which operation the uplink reference signal resource is used.

For example, the uplink reference signal resource may be classified into a Type 1 uplink reference signal resource (for link adaptation) and a Type 2 uplink reference signal resource (for beam management) as described above. The base station may notify to the UE whether the configured uplink reference signal resource (or the resource set) is the Type 1 uplink reference signal resource or the Type 2 uplink reference signal resource. Alternatively, the base station may notify to the UE whether the configured uplink reference signal resource (or the resource set) is the uplink reference signal resource of link adaptation or the uplink reference signal resource for beam management.

General Apparatus to which the Present Invention May be Applied

FIG. 15 illustrates a block diagram of a wireless communication apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 15, the wireless communication system includes a base station (eNB) 1510 and a plurality of user equipments (UEs) 1520 located within the region of the eNB 1510.

The eNB 1510 includes a processor 1511, a memory 1512 and a radio frequency unit 1513. The processor 1511 implements the functions, processes and/or methods proposed in FIGS. 1 to 15 above. The layers of wireless interface protocol may be implemented by the processor 1511. The memory 1512 is connected to the processor 1511, and stores various types of information for driving the processor 1511. The RF unit 1513 is connected to the processor 1511, and transmits and/or receives radio signals.

The UE 1520 includes a processor 1521, a memory 1522 and a radio frequency unit 1523. The processor 1521 implements the functions, processes and/or methods proposed in FIGS. 1 to 15 above. The layers of wireless interface protocol may be implemented by the processor 1521. The memory 1522 is connected to the processor 1521, and stores various types of information for driving the processor 1521. The RF unit 1523 is connected to the processor 1521, and transmits and/or receives radio signals.

The memories 1512 and 1522 may be located interior or exterior of the processors 1511 and 1521, and may be connected to the processors 1511 and 1521 with well known means. In addition, the eNB 1510 and/or the UE 1520 may have a single antenna or multiple antennas.

The embodiments described so far are those of the elements and technical features being coupled in a predetermined form. So far as there is not any apparent mention, each of the elements and technical features should be considered to be selective. Each of the elements and technical features may be embodied without being coupled with other elements or technical features. In addition, it is also possible to construct the embodiments of the present invention by coupling a part of the elements and/or technical features. The order of operations described in the embodiments of the present invention may be changed. A part of elements or technical features in an embodiment may be included in another embodiment, or may be replaced by the elements and technical features that correspond to other embodiment. It is apparent to construct embodiment by combining claims that do not have explicit reference relation in the following claims, or to include the claims in a new claim set by an amendment after application.

The embodiments of the present invention may be implemented by various means, for example, hardware, firmware, software and the combination thereof. In the case of the hardware, an embodiment of the present invention may be implemented by one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), digital signal processors (DSPs), digital signal processing devices (DSPDs), programmable logic devices (PLDs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), a processor, a controller, a micro controller, a micro processor, and the like.

In the case of the implementation by the firmware or the software, an embodiment of the present invention may be implemented in a form such as a module, a procedure, a function, and so on that performs the functions or operations described so far. Software codes may be stored in the memory, and driven by the processor. The memory may be located interior or exterior to the processor, and may exchange data with the processor with various known means.

It will be understood to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations may be made without departing from the essential features of the inventions. Therefore, the detailed description is not limited to the embodiments described above, but should be considered as examples. The scope of the present invention should be determined by reasonable interpretation of the attached claims, and all modification within the scope of equivalence should be included in the scope of the present invention.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

The present invention has been described based on an example in which it is applied to the 3GPP LTE/LTE-A systems or 5G system, but may be applied to various wireless communication systems in addition to the 3GPP LTE/LTE-A systems or 5G system. 

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method for performing uplink transmission by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving, from a base station, sounding reference signal (SRS) configuration information, wherein the SRS configuration information includes (i) SRS resource information and (ii) spatial relation information between a first SRS and a second SRS; and transmitting, to the base station, the second SRS by applying, to the second SRS, a spatial beamforming applied to the first SRS, based on the spatial relation information, wherein the spatial relation information is based on information related with a SRS resource of the first SRS, wherein the method further comprises: receiving, from the base station, downlink control information (DCI) for scheduling uplink transmission, wherein the DCI includes an SRS resource indication (SRI); and determining a bit width of an SRI field carrying the SRI in the DCI, wherein the bit width is determined based on (i) a number of SRS resources in an SRS resource set configured for the UE and (ii) a maximum number of layers supported for the uplink transmission.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein as the spatial relation information, one of (i) resource information of the first SRS or (ii) antenna port information of the SRS resource of the first SRS is indicated.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein for which operation a SRS resource included in the SRS resource information is used is configured by the base station.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the operation includes an uplink data scheduling operation and a beam management operation.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein a spatial beamforming is applied to a SRS resource for the uplink data scheduling operation so as to form beams of the same direction in all SRS antenna ports configured in a single SRS resource.
 6. The method of claim 4, wherein a spatial beamforming is applied to a SRS resource for the beam management operation so as to form beams of different directions for each SRS antenna port configured in a single SRS resource.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the second SRS is periodically transmitted or aperiodically transmitted by triggering by downlink control information (DCI).
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first SRS is an SRS latest transmitted before transmitting the second SRS.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the bit width of the SRI field is determined based on: ceil(log 2(S_tot)) where ceil{x} represents a function that outputs the smallest integer not smaller than x, ${S_{tot} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{L_{\max}}\;\begin{pmatrix} N \\ k \end{pmatrix}}},$ N represents the number of SRS resources in the SRS resource set configured to the UE, and L_max represents the maximum number of layers supported for uplink transmission.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the SRS resource set for determining the bit width of the SRI field is implicitly determined or configured by the base station.
 11. The method of claim 1, further comprising: transmitting uplink on an SRS antenna port transmitted in a SRS resource selected by the SRI.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein when the uplink transmission is performed based on a non-codebook, the bit width of the SRI field carrying the SRI is determined as the number of SRS resources in the SRS resource set configured to the UE and the maximum number of layers supported for the uplink transmission.
 13. A user equipment (UE) configured to perform uplink transmission in a wireless communication system, the user equipment comprising: a radio frequency (RF) unit; at least one processor; and at least one computer memory operably connectable to the at least one processor and storing instructions that, based on being executed by the at least one processor, perform actions comprising: receiving sounding reference signal (SRS) configuration information from a base station through the RF unit, wherein the SRS configuration information includes (i) SRS resource information and (ii) spatial relation information between a first SRS and a second SRS; and transmitting, to the base station through the RF unit, the second SRS by applying, to the second SRS, a spatial beamforming applied to the first SRS, based on the spatial relation information, wherein the spatial relation information is based on information related with a SRS resource of the first SRS, wherein the actions further comprise: receiving, from the base station through the RF unit, downlink control information (DCI) for scheduling uplink transmission, wherein the DCI includes an SRS resource indication (SRI); and determining a bit width of an SRI field carrying the SRI in the DCI, wherein the bit width is determined based on (i) a number of SRS resources in an SRS resource set configured for the UE and (ii) a maximum number of layers supported for the uplink transmission.
 14. The UE of claim 13, wherein as the spatial relation information, one of (i) resource information of the first SRS or (ii) antenna port information of the SRS resource of the first SRS is indicated.
 15. The UE of claim 13, wherein for which operation a SRS resource included in the SRS resource information is used is configured by the base station, and wherein the operation includes an uplink data scheduling operation and a beam management operation.
 16. The UE of claim 15, wherein a spatial beamforming is applied to a SRS resource for the uplink data scheduling operation so as to form beams of the same direction in all SRS antenna ports configured in a single SRS resource.
 17. The UE of claim 15, wherein a spatial beamforming is applied to a SRS resource for the beam management operation so as to form beams of different directions for each SRS antenna port configured in a single SRS resource.
 18. A processing apparatus configured to control a user equipment (UE) to perform uplink transmission in a wireless communication system, the processing apparatus comprising: at least one processor; and at least one computer memory operably connectable to the at least one processor and storing instructions that, based on being executed by the at least one processor, perform actions comprising: receiving sounding reference signal (SRS) configuration information from a base station, wherein the SRS configuration information includes (i) SRS resource information and (ii) spatial relation information between a first SRS and a second SRS; and transmitting, to the base station, the second SRS by applying, to the second SRS, a spatial beamforming applied to the first SRS, based on the spatial relation information, wherein the spatial relation information is based on information related with a SRS resource of the first SRS, wherein the actions further comprise: receiving, from the base station, downlink control information (DCI) for scheduling uplink transmission, wherein the DCI includes an SRS resource indication (SRI); and determining a bit width of an SRI field carrying the SRI in the DCI, wherein the bit width is determined based on (i) a number of SRS resources in an SRS resource set configured for the UE and (ii) a maximum number of layers supported for the uplink transmission. 